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How can anyone with a brain think like this? Drunk driving should come with harsher penalties in my opinion... How to lose all credibility in less than 10 secon

How can anyone with a brain think like this? Drunk driving should come with harsher penalties in my opinion... How to lose all credibility in less than 10 seconds.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
We live in an age of legal weed, and probably soon to be other substance. How can anyone with an IQ above freezing seek to criminalize any one substance rather than just criminalizing a) bad results b) impairment? I don't care what, if anything, you're on. If you can't drive you can't drive. If you can you can. Penalizing any one substance simply because we can measure it seems farcical at best.
- olliej 5y ago
  A DUI isn’t “drunk driving”. It is driving under influence, and covers all impairments: alcohol, prescription drugs, illegal drugs, etc. If the drug impacts your ability to safely operate a vehicle then DUI laws apply.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    <rolls eyes in loop> Sure, on paper. In reality 99% of enforcement is against alcohol because that's what they have the breathalyzers, blood tests and established law to go after. It's exceedingly rare for someone to get a DUI for anything other than booze unless they are so high they fall asleep at the wheel
    - orf 5y ago
      > I don't care what, if anything, you're on. If you can't drive you can't drive. Yep, and the law agrees… as you agreed. Does it take a freezing cold brain to argue against itself?
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Australia uses saliva tests to perform roadside THC, Methylamphetamine and MDMA tests. My understanding is that the Netherlands also performs similar roadside tests, and Canada is piloting doing so.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
      You're forgetting it's also what most people are on, which is the reason why it's the most tested for. 3 million deaths caused by alcohol every single year according to the WHO! It's almost like some sort of pandemic, only it's been going on forever and society isn't in the slightest way bothered. I find it so odd few see the absurdity in all these public health debates. Now we have a virus going around and people go full authoritarian, even though the majority of deaths is way above the median life expectancy in many countries. Meaning they'd not have lived much longer anyway. But drunks kill tons of random people including kids every year - no biggie. Just to be clear I'm against prohibition, I think all drugs should be legalized. There are millions of people who have serious issues with alcoholism though, and we have to do something against that, because they cause a lot of problems, even beyond killing others. It's farcical that drugs like LSD are highly illegal, even though users aren't known to harm others, but then others like alcohol are so accepted we even arguing about allowing people to drive while impaired with them. If there were data showing that legalizing drink driving would lead to fewer accidents I'd be absolutely willing to consider it. I've never heard of anyone seriously make such an argument though, it seems like total bunk. A professional drinker may be driving inconspicuously, until one day their slow reaction time may not be enough to not hit that person crossing the street at night.
      - Proven 5y ago
      - not2b 5y ago
        It is incorrect, at least in the US, that "the majority of deaths is way above the median life expectancy". While people over 75 have been hit the hardest, they are less than half the deaths, and Covid has caused US life expectancy to drop by two years.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  criminalizing based on impairment is fine but criminalizing based on 'bad results' is what is sometimes called 'moral luck' philosophy and dubious because it attributes punishment based not on intent but on factors beyond one's control. If two people throw a stone at your head and one misses because he happens to be a bad thrower few people would argue that this matters rather than the intent to harm.
  - compiler-guy 5y ago
    If two people throw a stone at your head, and one misses and the other hits, then there are (probably) two crimes involved: Both people assaulted you, but only one battered you. These two crimes have different punishments. It's quite normal to have outcome-based laws.
  - commoner 5y ago
    You're taking a deontological[1] view instead of a consequentialist[2] view. That's a valid viewpoint, but legal systems typically incorporate both views, and consider both intentions and outcomes. In your example, how much of a civil penalty should each perpetrator pay to reimburse the victim's medical expenses? If we only considered intentions and not outcomes, the civil penalty would depend on the average cost of medical expenses the victim would incur from this type of attack, multiplied by the probability such a throw would result in a hit, regardless of whether the stone actually hit the victim's head. But in reality, a court would focus more on outcomes than on intentions for this kind of civil penalty. The perpetrators would pay a civil penalty that depends on the victim's actual medical expenses. It's simply not practical to make accurate probability-based calculations for every damage assessment, and the victim should always be fully reimbursed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism
    - Barrin92 5y ago
      I don't think the issue is deontology or consequentialism here, I think you're actually giving a consequentalist account in both examples, just one time collectively and the other individually. My point is rather that for criminal culpability to exist, there needs to be intent. And (excuse me if this is somewhat inaccurate because I'm not from a common law region), in general a 'guilty mind' is a requirement in criminal law, no? Insofar as people receive lesser judgements for crimes without adverse outcomes the argument is that the better outcome reflects less willingness to commit or go through with a crime. To take an extreme example, no jurisdiction I'm aware of punishes attempted murder substantially less severely than actual murder even if the outcome is that there's no harm done at all. Likewise an accidental death is not a crime.
- bastardoperator 5y ago
  I don't care what people do in the privacy of their home. All of that is out the door when you step foot in a vehicle and put others at risk while driving intoxicated. You can get upset that we don't have the tools to measure other substances but as soon as we do I can guaranteed they'll be deployed and I won't mind a bit. Don't drive intoxicated, it's simple, I do it all the time. If I drink or smoke, I uber to and/or from. It's not a hard concept to abide by. Who said anything about penalizing any one substance? Alcohol abuse is just the most rampant and its effects tend to be the strongest when compared to other illicit substances. I think people that are selfish and ignorant enough to drive intoxicated deserve harsh penalties. Sorry not sorry.

How can anyone with a brain think like this? Drunk driving should come with harsher penalties in my opinion... How to lose all credibility in less than 10 seconds.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

We live in an age of legal weed, and probably soon to be other substance. How can anyone with an IQ above freezing seek to criminalize any one substance rather than just criminalizing a) bad results b) impairment? I don't care what, if anything, you're on. If you can't drive you can't drive. If you can you can. Penalizing any one substance simply because we can measure it seems farcical at best.

olliej 5y ago
A DUI isn’t “drunk driving”. It is driving under influence, and covers all impairments: alcohol, prescription drugs, illegal drugs, etc. If the drug impacts your ability to safely operate a vehicle then DUI laws apply.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  <rolls eyes in loop> Sure, on paper. In reality 99% of enforcement is against alcohol because that's what they have the breathalyzers, blood tests and established law to go after. It's exceedingly rare for someone to get a DUI for anything other than booze unless they are so high they fall asleep at the wheel
  - orf 5y ago
    > I don't care what, if anything, you're on. If you can't drive you can't drive. Yep, and the law agrees… as you agreed. Does it take a freezing cold brain to argue against itself?
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Australia uses saliva tests to perform roadside THC, Methylamphetamine and MDMA tests. My understanding is that the Netherlands also performs similar roadside tests, and Canada is piloting doing so.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    You're forgetting it's also what most people are on, which is the reason why it's the most tested for. 3 million deaths caused by alcohol every single year according to the WHO! It's almost like some sort of pandemic, only it's been going on forever and society isn't in the slightest way bothered. I find it so odd few see the absurdity in all these public health debates. Now we have a virus going around and people go full authoritarian, even though the majority of deaths is way above the median life expectancy in many countries. Meaning they'd not have lived much longer anyway. But drunks kill tons of random people including kids every year - no biggie. Just to be clear I'm against prohibition, I think all drugs should be legalized. There are millions of people who have serious issues with alcoholism though, and we have to do something against that, because they cause a lot of problems, even beyond killing others. It's farcical that drugs like LSD are highly illegal, even though users aren't known to harm others, but then others like alcohol are so accepted we even arguing about allowing people to drive while impaired with them. If there were data showing that legalizing drink driving would lead to fewer accidents I'd be absolutely willing to consider it. I've never heard of anyone seriously make such an argument though, it seems like total bunk. A professional drinker may be driving inconspicuously, until one day their slow reaction time may not be enough to not hit that person crossing the street at night.
    - Proven 5y ago
    - not2b 5y ago
      It is incorrect, at least in the US, that "the majority of deaths is way above the median life expectancy". While people over 75 have been hit the hardest, they are less than half the deaths, and Covid has caused US life expectancy to drop by two years.
Barrin92 5y ago
criminalizing based on impairment is fine but criminalizing based on 'bad results' is what is sometimes called 'moral luck' philosophy and dubious because it attributes punishment based not on intent but on factors beyond one's control. If two people throw a stone at your head and one misses because he happens to be a bad thrower few people would argue that this matters rather than the intent to harm.
- compiler-guy 5y ago
  If two people throw a stone at your head, and one misses and the other hits, then there are (probably) two crimes involved: Both people assaulted you, but only one battered you. These two crimes have different punishments. It's quite normal to have outcome-based laws.
- commoner 5y ago
  You're taking a deontological[1] view instead of a consequentialist[2] view. That's a valid viewpoint, but legal systems typically incorporate both views, and consider both intentions and outcomes. In your example, how much of a civil penalty should each perpetrator pay to reimburse the victim's medical expenses? If we only considered intentions and not outcomes, the civil penalty would depend on the average cost of medical expenses the victim would incur from this type of attack, multiplied by the probability such a throw would result in a hit, regardless of whether the stone actually hit the victim's head. But in reality, a court would focus more on outcomes than on intentions for this kind of civil penalty. The perpetrators would pay a civil penalty that depends on the victim's actual medical expenses. It's simply not practical to make accurate probability-based calculations for every damage assessment, and the victim should always be fully reimbursed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    I don't think the issue is deontology or consequentialism here, I think you're actually giving a consequentalist account in both examples, just one time collectively and the other individually. My point is rather that for criminal culpability to exist, there needs to be intent. And (excuse me if this is somewhat inaccurate because I'm not from a common law region), in general a 'guilty mind' is a requirement in criminal law, no? Insofar as people receive lesser judgements for crimes without adverse outcomes the argument is that the better outcome reflects less willingness to commit or go through with a crime. To take an extreme example, no jurisdiction I'm aware of punishes attempted murder substantially less severely than actual murder even if the outcome is that there's no harm done at all. Likewise an accidental death is not a crime.
bastardoperator 5y ago
I don't care what people do in the privacy of their home. All of that is out the door when you step foot in a vehicle and put others at risk while driving intoxicated. You can get upset that we don't have the tools to measure other substances but as soon as we do I can guaranteed they'll be deployed and I won't mind a bit. Don't drive intoxicated, it's simple, I do it all the time. If I drink or smoke, I uber to and/or from. It's not a hard concept to abide by. Who said anything about penalizing any one substance? Alcohol abuse is just the most rampant and its effects tend to be the strongest when compared to other illicit substances. I think people that are selfish and ignorant enough to drive intoxicated deserve harsh penalties. Sorry not sorry.