4 ms·

I remember watching an anti-alcohol video in high school wherein they gave 4 or 5 people one drink after another and had them drive an obstacle course increasin

I remember watching an anti-alcohol video in high school wherein they gave 4 or 5 people one drink after another and had them drive an obstacle course increasingly intoxicated. All but one of them got worse with additional alcohol, but the last guy, who was probably a high-functioning alcoholic who drank daily, continued to drive faster and more precisely with each additional drink well past the legal limit until his skills collapsed catastrophically at around twice the legal limit. So basically, I suspect it's hard to come up with a uniform standard here so they err excessively on the side of caution and use a limit where an otherwise teetotaler would be impaired. Finding out not even that is accurate is not encouraging.

throwawaycanada 7y ago
Especially since a conviction hurts people more than most car accidents.
- tim58 7y ago
  I did the math once for the local area I was in ~10 years ago and found out your 10x more likely to be arrested for drinking and driving than you are to have an accident while drinking and driving. I tend the interpret these numbers to mean that the system is fairly good at catching drunk drivers before they have an accident.
  - baddox 7y ago
    I’m not sure how that statistic leads you to that conclusion.
  - varelse 7y ago
    So the memory of that film has led me to propose my own absurd DUI sliding scale: If you are caught above at or above that low-end legal limit, you are sentenced to drive your car through an obstacle course filled with clearly marked landmines at the same level of intoxication at which you were caught. Make it a PPV event and it'd be straight out of the world of _Pennyworth_.
    - throwawaycanada 7y ago
      Cool as long as you do that for a hundred other offenses.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >I tend the interpret these numbers to mean that the system is fairly good at catching drunk drivers before they have an accident. That doesn't mean it can't also be so draconian as to hurt many law abiding people.
smileysteve 7y ago
Another anecdote of SCCA Solo 1 racers at a GoKart closed course; 0 drinks, average times 1 drink, better lines, quicker times 2 drinks, horrible lines, sloppy corners, slower times.
- rhcom2 7y ago
  Also known as the "Ballmer Peak" https://xkcd.com/323/ https://xkcd.com/323/

throwawaycanada 7y ago

Especially since a conviction hurts people more than most car accidents.

tim58 7y ago
I did the math once for the local area I was in ~10 years ago and found out your 10x more likely to be arrested for drinking and driving than you are to have an accident while drinking and driving. I tend the interpret these numbers to mean that the system is fairly good at catching drunk drivers before they have an accident.
- baddox 7y ago
  I’m not sure how that statistic leads you to that conclusion.
- varelse 7y ago
  So the memory of that film has led me to propose my own absurd DUI sliding scale: If you are caught above at or above that low-end legal limit, you are sentenced to drive your car through an obstacle course filled with clearly marked landmines at the same level of intoxication at which you were caught. Make it a PPV event and it'd be straight out of the world of _Pennyworth_.
  - throwawaycanada 7y ago
    Cool as long as you do that for a hundred other offenses.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >I tend the interpret these numbers to mean that the system is fairly good at catching drunk drivers before they have an accident. That doesn't mean it can't also be so draconian as to hurt many law abiding people.

smileysteve 7y ago

Another anecdote of SCCA Solo 1 racers at a GoKart closed course; 0 drinks, average times 1 drink, better lines, quicker times 2 drinks, horrible lines, sloppy corners, slower times.

rhcom2 7y ago
Also known as the "Ballmer Peak" https://xkcd.com/323/ https://xkcd.com/323/