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Instead of mostly attempting symptom mitigation, wouldn't it be a much better improvement for society if the relation (some?) Americans have with alcohol was re

Instead of mostly attempting symptom mitigation, wouldn't it be a much better improvement for society if the relation (some?) Americans have with alcohol was repaired?

DocTomoe 4y ago
Coming from an European country: 16 year olds can openly buy beer in the supermarket and consume it on their way home from school. Driving licenses start at age 18, but there's two years of special probation that punish DUIs more extensively (and have a significantly lower limit). Police enforcement of these driving rules at times when young people celebrate is high. This also means they do not start binge-drinking AFTER they got their driving license, they know their limits by then. Doesn't mean we don't have drunk drivers, but maybe less drunk ones. We've had around 13500 alcohol-induced accidents with human casualties (of 306000 altogether) in 2021, but only about 2600 deaths overall, so probably less than 300 alcohol-related deaths in traffic.
eluketronic 4y ago
This seems akin to trying to change our nations attitude towards guns and semi automatic weapons instead of improving gun control legislation. According to the 2020 figures in the article > 10,000 people are dying every year from alcohol-related accidents. If there’s something tangible that can be done to reduce that death count, I’m all for it. As wonderful as it would be to reform the national attitude towards alcohol and excessive drinking, the alcohol lobby and our stubbornness as a culture would probably make it very challenging to effect any meaningful change. It’ll be interesting to see how far this gets from a technical standpoint and, if it does actually make it into new vehicles, how many work-arounds people come up with.
- mwint 4y ago
  > If there’s something tangible that can be done to reduce that death count, I’m all for it. If we just put everyone in jail, there would be many fewer DUI deaths. Yeah, it’d come at the cost of some liberty, but apparently that’s no big deal anymore.
mrosett 4y ago
Like it or not (I’m ambivalent) this is a concrete measure that would presumably have measurable effects. What’s the equivalent for your proposed approach?
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Concrete proposal, lower the drinking age to 16, allow teens to drink with families in restraints and develop healthy relations with alcohol. Add sunset clause to the law in 10 years and Measure the change in drunk driving and addition.
micromacrofoot 4y ago
We can implement breathalyzers in cars right now, today. There are no serious hurdles in the way and it would make driving while drunk a little harder. How exactly do we convince an entire country be more responsible with alcohol?

Instead of mostly attempting symptom mitigation, wouldn't it be a much better improvement for society if the relation (some?) Americans have with alcohol was repaired?

DocTomoe 4y ago

Coming from an European country: 16 year olds can openly buy beer in the supermarket and consume it on their way home from school. Driving licenses start at age 18, but there's two years of special probation that punish DUIs more extensively (and have a significantly lower limit). Police enforcement of these driving rules at times when young people celebrate is high. This also means they do not start binge-drinking AFTER they got their driving license, they know their limits by then. Doesn't mean we don't have drunk drivers, but maybe less drunk ones. We've had around 13500 alcohol-induced accidents with human casualties (of 306000 altogether) in 2021, but only about 2600 deaths overall, so probably less than 300 alcohol-related deaths in traffic.

eluketronic 4y ago

This seems akin to trying to change our nations attitude towards guns and semi automatic weapons instead of improving gun control legislation. According to the 2020 figures in the article > 10,000 people are dying every year from alcohol-related accidents. If there’s something tangible that can be done to reduce that death count, I’m all for it. As wonderful as it would be to reform the national attitude towards alcohol and excessive drinking, the alcohol lobby and our stubbornness as a culture would probably make it very challenging to effect any meaningful change. It’ll be interesting to see how far this gets from a technical standpoint and, if it does actually make it into new vehicles, how many work-arounds people come up with.

mwint 4y ago
> If there’s something tangible that can be done to reduce that death count, I’m all for it. If we just put everyone in jail, there would be many fewer DUI deaths. Yeah, it’d come at the cost of some liberty, but apparently that’s no big deal anymore.

mrosett 4y ago

Like it or not (I’m ambivalent) this is a concrete measure that would presumably have measurable effects. What’s the equivalent for your proposed approach?

s1artibartfast 4y ago
Concrete proposal, lower the drinking age to 16, allow teens to drink with families in restraints and develop healthy relations with alcohol. Add sunset clause to the law in 10 years and Measure the change in drunk driving and addition.

micromacrofoot 4y ago

We can implement breathalyzers in cars right now, today. There are no serious hurdles in the way and it would make driving while drunk a little harder. How exactly do we convince an entire country be more responsible with alcohol?