3 ms·

No, because 36 in a 40 isn't as likely to kill someone.

by thaumaturgy 8y ago

dpark 8y ago
.07 isn’t likely to kill anyone either. 0.08 isn’t exactly falling down drunk in the first place and .07 is less.
- thaumaturgy 8y ago
  If you can provide some actual data for this, I'd be willing to consider it. The best I can find are some nhtsa stats that include collisions and fatalities for drivers with a .01 to .07 BAC, but it also includes the same stats for drivers with .00 BAC, so it doesn't look like they're identifying impairment as the primary cause of the collision: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811654 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... [pdf] Also, from their appendix: "Drivers are considered to be alcohol-impaired when their BACs are .08 g/dL or higher. Thus, any fatal crash involving a driver with a BAC of .08 or higher is considered to be an alcohol-impaired-driving crash, and fatalities occurring in those crashes are considered to bealcohol-impaired-driving fatalities." Too bad, that makes that particular study sort of useless for arguing the consequences of drunk driving.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dpark 8y ago
    This is absurd. By your own admission you have no evidence that even 0.08 is unsafe (impairment is established by definition and not observation in your link) and yet you expect me to prove a negative and show that 0.07 is safe. 0.00 isn’t even safe. People have accidents while driving sober all the time. The reality is that you are deferring to the law when you assume that 0.08 is proven unsafe. And that’s a pretty reasonable assumption. 0.08 was supposed to be established as the level at which essentially everyone demonstrates some level of impairment (whether that’s actually true, I don’t know). But you have no evidence that 0.07 is unsafe. You lack scientific evidence and you also lack the ability to defer to the law. So your belief is arbitrary. You’re essentially saying that .08 is definitely unsafe because the law says so, so 0.07 must be unsafe, too, because it’s close. But this is unreasonable. If the law defines safety then defer to the law. Otherwise the law could be .07 and you’d be making this argument about .06. And so on.
    - thaumaturgy 8y ago
      Hey, dial it back a notch, okay? My "admission" was that I could not find any data to support your claim that ".07 isn't likely to kill anyone either". The NHTSA's statement on why .08 was chosen: https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/alcohol-laws/08history/1_introduction.htm https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/alcohol-law... A TIME article considering whether .08 is too high: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2025301,00.html http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2025301,0... The National Academy of Sciences recently recommended lowering the limit to .05: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=24951 http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?Rec... (there are a few links to pdfs at the bottom with more details) My original comment was a plea for people to reconsider driving while "just barely legal", because it wasn't worth the risks. You want to know if there is actually any risk. Well, here you go.
      - learc83 8y ago
        So if a state has a limit of .05, are you OK with convicting people who blow a .04?
        thaumaturgy 8y ago
        Not so much.
        learc83 8y ago
        So the real problem here is that you want a lower limit. The margin of error has the effect of occasionally lowering that limit, so you're OK with it. You're OK with police incorrectly applying the law as long as the outcome is something that you agree with. There are a few problems with that. 1. You're not always going to agree with the way the police incorrectly apply the law and police culture and procedure is harder to change than statutory limits. 2. The margin of error works both ways. It lets some people who are over a .08 go free. And it punishes some people who are below a .08. We should strive to remove arbitrariness from our justice system. It's not always possible but we should try for it anyway.
strathmeyer 8y ago
Drivers almost kill me all the time. It's not illegal until they actually kill me. Why is that?
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Shhh. Automobile enthusiasts are furiously pretending that the automobile itself is not the problem. They don't want to hear from cyclists and pedestrians.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
It's about as likely to kill someone as 44 in a 40 is. Deviations from the speed of other traffic are what increase danger. You're just less liable if you're going slower than everyone else.

No, because 36 in a 40 isn't as likely to kill someone.

dpark 8y ago

.07 isn’t likely to kill anyone either. 0.08 isn’t exactly falling down drunk in the first place and .07 is less.

thaumaturgy 8y ago
If you can provide some actual data for this, I'd be willing to consider it. The best I can find are some nhtsa stats that include collisions and fatalities for drivers with a .01 to .07 BAC, but it also includes the same stats for drivers with .00 BAC, so it doesn't look like they're identifying impairment as the primary cause of the collision: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811654 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... [pdf] Also, from their appendix: "Drivers are considered to be alcohol-impaired when their BACs are .08 g/dL or higher. Thus, any fatal crash involving a driver with a BAC of .08 or higher is considered to be an alcohol-impaired-driving crash, and fatalities occurring in those crashes are considered to bealcohol-impaired-driving fatalities." Too bad, that makes that particular study sort of useless for arguing the consequences of drunk driving.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dpark 8y ago
  This is absurd. By your own admission you have no evidence that even 0.08 is unsafe (impairment is established by definition and not observation in your link) and yet you expect me to prove a negative and show that 0.07 is safe. 0.00 isn’t even safe. People have accidents while driving sober all the time. The reality is that you are deferring to the law when you assume that 0.08 is proven unsafe. And that’s a pretty reasonable assumption. 0.08 was supposed to be established as the level at which essentially everyone demonstrates some level of impairment (whether that’s actually true, I don’t know). But you have no evidence that 0.07 is unsafe. You lack scientific evidence and you also lack the ability to defer to the law. So your belief is arbitrary. You’re essentially saying that .08 is definitely unsafe because the law says so, so 0.07 must be unsafe, too, because it’s close. But this is unreasonable. If the law defines safety then defer to the law. Otherwise the law could be .07 and you’d be making this argument about .06. And so on.
  - thaumaturgy 8y ago
    Hey, dial it back a notch, okay? My "admission" was that I could not find any data to support your claim that ".07 isn't likely to kill anyone either". The NHTSA's statement on why .08 was chosen: https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/alcohol-laws/08history/1_introduction.htm https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/alcohol-law... A TIME article considering whether .08 is too high: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2025301,00.html http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2025301,0... The National Academy of Sciences recently recommended lowering the limit to .05: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=24951 http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?Rec... (there are a few links to pdfs at the bottom with more details) My original comment was a plea for people to reconsider driving while "just barely legal", because it wasn't worth the risks. You want to know if there is actually any risk. Well, here you go.
    - learc83 8y ago
      So if a state has a limit of .05, are you OK with convicting people who blow a .04?
      - thaumaturgy 8y ago
        Not so much.
        learc83 8y ago
        So the real problem here is that you want a lower limit. The margin of error has the effect of occasionally lowering that limit, so you're OK with it. You're OK with police incorrectly applying the law as long as the outcome is something that you agree with. There are a few problems with that. 1. You're not always going to agree with the way the police incorrectly apply the law and police culture and procedure is harder to change than statutory limits. 2. The margin of error works both ways. It lets some people who are over a .08 go free. And it punishes some people who are below a .08. We should strive to remove arbitrariness from our justice system. It's not always possible but we should try for it anyway.

strathmeyer 8y ago

Drivers almost kill me all the time. It's not illegal until they actually kill me. Why is that?

jessaustin 8y ago
Shhh. Automobile enthusiasts are furiously pretending that the automobile itself is not the problem. They don't want to hear from cyclists and pedestrians.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

It's about as likely to kill someone as 44 in a 40 is. Deviations from the speed of other traffic are what increase danger. You're just less liable if you're going slower than everyone else.