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The theory is they'll just drive anyway without a license. Plus in many/most parts of the US, a car is effectively required to live, so removing one's ability t

The theory is they'll just drive anyway without a license. Plus in many/most parts of the US, a car is effectively required to live, so removing one's ability to drive is a seriously major punishment. The whiskey plate indicates to other drivers that the car could be more dangerous than expected, and yes, I think the shame is supposed to be a component as well. It's harm reduction, not a perfect solution. I don't know if the theory works in practice.

gambiting 3y ago
>>so removing one's ability to drive is a seriously major punishment. Being caught drunk driving 3(!!!) times is a seriously major crime. I'm a strong advocate for a complete driving ban after a single drunk driving episode, 3 is just crazy to me. I get the argument that in US that basically makes it impossible to get anywhere without a car but I don't know - get a bicycle or something, literally anything is preferable to letting these people on the road again.
- haswell 3y ago
  Depending on location, a bicycle is not a viable alternative. Driving is a condition of living if food is 30 minutes of driving into town. I’m am not advocating for lax DUI laws, but a driving ban is the equivalent of house arrest or forced relocation for some people/locations unless they have people who can help them with transportation. Moving to a city with public transit would provide the most autonomy, but would also mean uprooting one’s life, leaving family behind, etc. The total impact is indeed very harsh, even if it is necessary for the safety of others.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    >>Depending on location, a bicycle is not a viable alternative. I understand. That doesn't change my stance on the matter.
    - haswell 3y ago
      > get a bicycle or something So the suggestion was untenable from the start. Driving drunk should be penalized, even harshly. But people should have a chance at rehabilitation. In a car dependent society/region, a permanent ban without an opportunity for reform is cruel and unusual punishment. If self driving cars were 100% here right now, or if we had better public transportation, I think it’d be a different story.
      - Clent 3y ago
        What about my right not to be murdered by a habitual drunk driver?
        bragr 3y ago
        All rights are a balancing act between the rights of the individual and the rights of society. Thinking about them as one or the other is a pretty dangerous line of thinking IMHO.
        hansvm 3y ago
        If it makes you feel any better, you don't have much of a right in the US not to be murdered by habitually sober drivers either [0-4]. Other drivers are often very aggressive [5], there's not all that much you can do to mitigate harm at the time, there's practically nothing you can do to discourage that bad behavior if they didn't actually crash into anything, and even if they do your options can be limited. [0] https://www.startribune.com/probation-for-negligent-truck-driver-who-caused-crash-in-anoka-county-that-killed-motorcyclist/600196918/ https://www.startribune.com/probation-for-negligent-truck-dr... [1] https://www.annarbor.com/news/motorist-sentenced-to-probation-in-bicyclists-death/ https://www.annarbor.com/news/motorist-sentenced-to-probatio... [2] https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/driver-in-hit-and-run-that-killed-boy-gets-probation/566652932/ https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/driver-in-hit-and-run-that... [3] https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/driver-in-crash-that-killed-two-kids-given-probation https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/driver-in-crash-that-killed... (if you kill enough children you can get a little jailtime, but again the fact that you were driving really dials back the sentencing) [4] https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/man-accused-in-deadly-wilton-manors-hit-and-run-that-killed-3-children-facing-more-charges/2872599/ https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/man-accused-in-deadly-wi... [5] Not a source; I'm just appalled at the utter disregard for human life I see every time I compare SF drivers to the rest of the country. It's not everywhere that you'll see a car speed >60mph around the shoulder (dodging pedestrians) to pass the car stopped waiting for the kids to cross at the well-marked flashing crosswalk in their school zone, but that level of misbehavior is commonplace here. Why? Is it a sampling artifact? Other major cities don't _seem_ so bad in comparison.
  - haliskerbas 3y ago
    We have ruined people's lives in this country for selling a bit of weed, but we wouldn't want to disrupt someone's life too much if they drove drunk THREE times!
    - haswell 3y ago
      Ruining people’s lives over weed is arguably immoral and not justice. I see no connection between that and penalties for drunk driving, which are necessary. The point is that while a person should lose their driving privileges for driving drunk, we should take seriously the implications of the typical punishment given our car dependent society, and the lack of public transit options in most places that aren’t big city centers. The comment was a reaction to the flippant “just get a bike”, which is clearly not sufficient in many cases. Driving drunk is stupid, dangerous, and should involve serious penalties. We should not ruin people’s lives over it.
      - ahtihn 3y ago
        > Driving drunk is stupid, dangerous, and should involve serious penalties. We should not ruin people’s lives over it. After getting caught 3 times doing it? Meaning they do it very frequently and will never stop doing it? It's not an innocent mistake at this point. Yes driving privileges should absolutely be revoked over it and if that ruins their life maybe they should have thought about the consequences of their actions?
      - zirgs 3y ago
        I'd argue that we should ruin people's lives over it. Why stop driving drunk if there are no serious consequences?
        mitchdoogle 3y ago
        Texting while driving (or other similar distractions) results in slower reaction times for drivers than even drunk drivers. Yet it doesn't carry the same stigma. I would even guess a big portion of the people who have absolute disdain for drunk driving are guilty of distracted driving from time to time. I don't know what the answer to that is, since it's more difficult to catch and prove But at the least we should all call out our friends or family if we see them doing it, the same way we would if they were about to drive while drunk.
- thrashh 3y ago
  This is going to sound maybe insensitive but I've noticed driving drunk is a cultural thing. I've been with certain groups of people and pretty much it seems everyone and their cousin has a DUI and no one regarded it as a major crime. It sounds crazy but I bet if you were born 40 years earlier, you wouldn't care. Drunk driving wasn't even a thing until Mothers Against Drunk Driving made it a thing in the 80s. I don't support drunk driving at all but it seems our views on right and wrong are just products of society, lol.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    There's also drunk driving the crime and drunk driving the act. What I mean by this is that when people go out to eat lunch or dinner, they drive to the restaurant. They obviously need to drive back when they're done. They obviously also had some good drinks while they were there; beer, wine, the works. Even just a sip of alcohol will count as drunk driving, legally speaking. The police largely turn a blind eye to this, because it's so utterly commonplace and a fact and part of life that policing this would quickly lead to a community and public revolt. Restaurants also happily serve alcohol because drunk driving is not their problem, and restaurants that don't will quickly go out of business anyway. On the other side of the coin however, if you drive to a liquor store at an ungodly hour the police will be on you in an instant to check if you're driving drunk and arrest you if you are. Why? Because everyone wants or needs to eat and drink, but nobody needs to drop by a liquor store at 10pm. The police will also check if you're driving drunk if they see you on the road and it's blatantly obvious you can't drive straight. This should go without saying, though; and it means most people who drink at restaurants can drive safe (FSVO safe). Obligatory IANAL, obligatory don't drink and drive disclaimer.
    - HWR_14 3y ago
      In the US most states have a BAC requirement above 0.00 to be drunk driving (so "a sip" of alcohol doesn't qualify). Also the idea that no one should buy liquor at 10 pm or that it is strange to get drinks for someone's party is odd. Why would the liquor stores be open if no one needed liquor then? Your statement seems pretty judgmental. But yes, we agree don't drink and drive.
- n8cpdx 3y ago
  Drunk driving is way more common than you might think. If we’re ready to cut off ~10% (or more) of drivers for life, we should bite the bullet and mandate ignition interlocks. Driving is a privilege, not a right. But enforcement needs to help people make the right choice, not just be a lottery for ruining lives in car-dependent places (unfortunately most of the US).
  - wyclif 3y ago
    I've mentioned it before on this forum, but before I was a software developer I spent over 10 years as a land surveyor. I mention that because it involves a lot of road layout and roadside work setting control points, &c. I used to find so many empty flasks of booze, empty syringes, and empty pill bottles in the weeds on the side of the road that drivers had thrown out the windows of their vehicles. Even in some rural areas this was the case. The point is that there's still a lot of Americans driving impaired. There's a certain amount of risk involved in operating or riding in a vehicle even if you are stone cold sober. You never know if other drivers are impaired until it's too late.
- actuallyalys 3y ago
  I was curious how many people caught driving durnk go on to drive drunk again, and a NHTSA study found an average of about 25 percent of people arrested for drunk driving had a prior arrest. About 30 percent of people with a drunk driving conviction had a prior conviction [0]. This is pretty high. I'm not sure if it's high enough to warrant a permanent ban, but long-term suspensions and mandatory interlocks seem justifiable. (Edit) As philwelch points out, the recidivism rate of all drunk drivers is technically different than that of first-time offenders. Accounting for this doesn't seem to wildly change the recidivism rate, though. [0]: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/811991-dwi_recidivism_in_usa-tsf-rn.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/811991...
  - philwelch 3y ago
    “Proportion of offenders who previously offended” is not necessarily an indication of “proportion of first-time offenders who will reoffend”.
    - actuallyalys 3y ago
      That's a good point. Since it's looking at offenders and not offenses, I don't think they can diverge too much (but perhaps I'm not thinking of the math correctly). I did find a study looking at just first-time offenders, which found a similar level after five years: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095888/figure/F1/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095888/figure/....
- chungy 3y ago
  Being drunk on a bike is probably even more dangerous than drunk driving a car. Unfortunately, one doesn't need a license to use public roads with a bicycle.
  - Clent 3y ago
    More dangerous for whom?
    - chungy 3y ago
      Dangerous for all parties involved. Being out in the open with no safety belt, no crumple zones, a bicyclist can be easily killed in an accident. Drivers attempting to swerve out of the way can cause a greater accident with other vehicles, not to mention the possibility of killing a bicyclist. Add to that, the hypothetical of riding a bicycle while drunk, you've now just worsened the problem. Moral of the story: don't drive drunk, don't ride a bike drunk. Ideally, don't get drunk at all, but if you do, don't operate any kind of vehicle.
- mitchdoogle 3y ago
  Distracted driving is just as bad (or worse) than drunk driving in terms of reaction time. Texting, social media, doing makeup, fiddling with stereo/maps. People routinely do these things and while they are doing them, they are putting themselves and other drivers at serious risk. And yet they don't carry anywhere near the same stigma as drunk driving. My point is, if you're going to be that draconian about drunk driving punishment, you'd better be consistent and adopt the same attitude towards people who text and do tiktoks while behind the wheel. Personally I don't think either should result in losing a license, at least not for the first offense
zirgs 3y ago
In my country the state now confiscates cars of drunk drivers if their BAC is above 0.15%. And they also get criminally prosecuted - having a criminal record can seriously fuck up their lives. But some people still choose to drive drunk.
- mitchdoogle 3y ago
  Punishments are not an effective deterrent. That is, you could increase the punishment ten fold and people would still do it. What matters is if people think they will get caught. You put up driving check points every weekend around the nightlife areas and you will see a decline, because people will feel more certain they will be caught, even if the punishment is not as bad.

gambiting 3y ago

>>so removing one's ability to drive is a seriously major punishment. Being caught drunk driving 3(!!!) times is a seriously major crime. I'm a strong advocate for a complete driving ban after a single drunk driving episode, 3 is just crazy to me. I get the argument that in US that basically makes it impossible to get anywhere without a car but I don't know - get a bicycle or something, literally anything is preferable to letting these people on the road again.

haswell 3y ago
Depending on location, a bicycle is not a viable alternative. Driving is a condition of living if food is 30 minutes of driving into town. I’m am not advocating for lax DUI laws, but a driving ban is the equivalent of house arrest or forced relocation for some people/locations unless they have people who can help them with transportation. Moving to a city with public transit would provide the most autonomy, but would also mean uprooting one’s life, leaving family behind, etc. The total impact is indeed very harsh, even if it is necessary for the safety of others.
- gambiting 3y ago
  >>Depending on location, a bicycle is not a viable alternative. I understand. That doesn't change my stance on the matter.
  - haswell 3y ago
    > get a bicycle or something So the suggestion was untenable from the start. Driving drunk should be penalized, even harshly. But people should have a chance at rehabilitation. In a car dependent society/region, a permanent ban without an opportunity for reform is cruel and unusual punishment. If self driving cars were 100% here right now, or if we had better public transportation, I think it’d be a different story.
    - Clent 3y ago
      What about my right not to be murdered by a habitual drunk driver?
      - bragr 3y ago
        All rights are a balancing act between the rights of the individual and the rights of society. Thinking about them as one or the other is a pretty dangerous line of thinking IMHO.
      - hansvm 3y ago
        If it makes you feel any better, you don't have much of a right in the US not to be murdered by habitually sober drivers either [0-4]. Other drivers are often very aggressive [5], there's not all that much you can do to mitigate harm at the time, there's practically nothing you can do to discourage that bad behavior if they didn't actually crash into anything, and even if they do your options can be limited. [0] https://www.startribune.com/probation-for-negligent-truck-driver-who-caused-crash-in-anoka-county-that-killed-motorcyclist/600196918/ https://www.startribune.com/probation-for-negligent-truck-dr... [1] https://www.annarbor.com/news/motorist-sentenced-to-probation-in-bicyclists-death/ https://www.annarbor.com/news/motorist-sentenced-to-probatio... [2] https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/driver-in-hit-and-run-that-killed-boy-gets-probation/566652932/ https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/driver-in-hit-and-run-that... [3] https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/driver-in-crash-that-killed-two-kids-given-probation https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/driver-in-crash-that-killed... (if you kill enough children you can get a little jailtime, but again the fact that you were driving really dials back the sentencing) [4] https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/man-accused-in-deadly-wilton-manors-hit-and-run-that-killed-3-children-facing-more-charges/2872599/ https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/man-accused-in-deadly-wi... [5] Not a source; I'm just appalled at the utter disregard for human life I see every time I compare SF drivers to the rest of the country. It's not everywhere that you'll see a car speed >60mph around the shoulder (dodging pedestrians) to pass the car stopped waiting for the kids to cross at the well-marked flashing crosswalk in their school zone, but that level of misbehavior is commonplace here. Why? Is it a sampling artifact? Other major cities don't _seem_ so bad in comparison.
- haliskerbas 3y ago
  We have ruined people's lives in this country for selling a bit of weed, but we wouldn't want to disrupt someone's life too much if they drove drunk THREE times!
  - haswell 3y ago
    Ruining people’s lives over weed is arguably immoral and not justice. I see no connection between that and penalties for drunk driving, which are necessary. The point is that while a person should lose their driving privileges for driving drunk, we should take seriously the implications of the typical punishment given our car dependent society, and the lack of public transit options in most places that aren’t big city centers. The comment was a reaction to the flippant “just get a bike”, which is clearly not sufficient in many cases. Driving drunk is stupid, dangerous, and should involve serious penalties. We should not ruin people’s lives over it.
    - ahtihn 3y ago
      > Driving drunk is stupid, dangerous, and should involve serious penalties. We should not ruin people’s lives over it. After getting caught 3 times doing it? Meaning they do it very frequently and will never stop doing it? It's not an innocent mistake at this point. Yes driving privileges should absolutely be revoked over it and if that ruins their life maybe they should have thought about the consequences of their actions?
    - zirgs 3y ago
      I'd argue that we should ruin people's lives over it. Why stop driving drunk if there are no serious consequences?
      - mitchdoogle 3y ago
        Texting while driving (or other similar distractions) results in slower reaction times for drivers than even drunk drivers. Yet it doesn't carry the same stigma. I would even guess a big portion of the people who have absolute disdain for drunk driving are guilty of distracted driving from time to time. I don't know what the answer to that is, since it's more difficult to catch and prove But at the least we should all call out our friends or family if we see them doing it, the same way we would if they were about to drive while drunk.
thrashh 3y ago
This is going to sound maybe insensitive but I've noticed driving drunk is a cultural thing. I've been with certain groups of people and pretty much it seems everyone and their cousin has a DUI and no one regarded it as a major crime. It sounds crazy but I bet if you were born 40 years earlier, you wouldn't care. Drunk driving wasn't even a thing until Mothers Against Drunk Driving made it a thing in the 80s. I don't support drunk driving at all but it seems our views on right and wrong are just products of society, lol.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  There's also drunk driving the crime and drunk driving the act. What I mean by this is that when people go out to eat lunch or dinner, they drive to the restaurant. They obviously need to drive back when they're done. They obviously also had some good drinks while they were there; beer, wine, the works. Even just a sip of alcohol will count as drunk driving, legally speaking. The police largely turn a blind eye to this, because it's so utterly commonplace and a fact and part of life that policing this would quickly lead to a community and public revolt. Restaurants also happily serve alcohol because drunk driving is not their problem, and restaurants that don't will quickly go out of business anyway. On the other side of the coin however, if you drive to a liquor store at an ungodly hour the police will be on you in an instant to check if you're driving drunk and arrest you if you are. Why? Because everyone wants or needs to eat and drink, but nobody needs to drop by a liquor store at 10pm. The police will also check if you're driving drunk if they see you on the road and it's blatantly obvious you can't drive straight. This should go without saying, though; and it means most people who drink at restaurants can drive safe (FSVO safe). Obligatory IANAL, obligatory don't drink and drive disclaimer.
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    In the US most states have a BAC requirement above 0.00 to be drunk driving (so "a sip" of alcohol doesn't qualify). Also the idea that no one should buy liquor at 10 pm or that it is strange to get drinks for someone's party is odd. Why would the liquor stores be open if no one needed liquor then? Your statement seems pretty judgmental. But yes, we agree don't drink and drive.
n8cpdx 3y ago
Drunk driving is way more common than you might think. If we’re ready to cut off ~10% (or more) of drivers for life, we should bite the bullet and mandate ignition interlocks. Driving is a privilege, not a right. But enforcement needs to help people make the right choice, not just be a lottery for ruining lives in car-dependent places (unfortunately most of the US).
- wyclif 3y ago
  I've mentioned it before on this forum, but before I was a software developer I spent over 10 years as a land surveyor. I mention that because it involves a lot of road layout and roadside work setting control points, &c. I used to find so many empty flasks of booze, empty syringes, and empty pill bottles in the weeds on the side of the road that drivers had thrown out the windows of their vehicles. Even in some rural areas this was the case. The point is that there's still a lot of Americans driving impaired. There's a certain amount of risk involved in operating or riding in a vehicle even if you are stone cold sober. You never know if other drivers are impaired until it's too late.
actuallyalys 3y ago
I was curious how many people caught driving durnk go on to drive drunk again, and a NHTSA study found an average of about 25 percent of people arrested for drunk driving had a prior arrest. About 30 percent of people with a drunk driving conviction had a prior conviction [0]. This is pretty high. I'm not sure if it's high enough to warrant a permanent ban, but long-term suspensions and mandatory interlocks seem justifiable. (Edit) As philwelch points out, the recidivism rate of all drunk drivers is technically different than that of first-time offenders. Accounting for this doesn't seem to wildly change the recidivism rate, though. [0]: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/811991-dwi_recidivism_in_usa-tsf-rn.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/811991...
- philwelch 3y ago
  “Proportion of offenders who previously offended” is not necessarily an indication of “proportion of first-time offenders who will reoffend”.
  - actuallyalys 3y ago
    That's a good point. Since it's looking at offenders and not offenses, I don't think they can diverge too much (but perhaps I'm not thinking of the math correctly). I did find a study looking at just first-time offenders, which found a similar level after five years: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095888/figure/F1/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095888/figure/....
chungy 3y ago
Being drunk on a bike is probably even more dangerous than drunk driving a car. Unfortunately, one doesn't need a license to use public roads with a bicycle.
- Clent 3y ago
  More dangerous for whom?
  - chungy 3y ago
    Dangerous for all parties involved. Being out in the open with no safety belt, no crumple zones, a bicyclist can be easily killed in an accident. Drivers attempting to swerve out of the way can cause a greater accident with other vehicles, not to mention the possibility of killing a bicyclist. Add to that, the hypothetical of riding a bicycle while drunk, you've now just worsened the problem. Moral of the story: don't drive drunk, don't ride a bike drunk. Ideally, don't get drunk at all, but if you do, don't operate any kind of vehicle.
mitchdoogle 3y ago
Distracted driving is just as bad (or worse) than drunk driving in terms of reaction time. Texting, social media, doing makeup, fiddling with stereo/maps. People routinely do these things and while they are doing them, they are putting themselves and other drivers at serious risk. And yet they don't carry anywhere near the same stigma as drunk driving. My point is, if you're going to be that draconian about drunk driving punishment, you'd better be consistent and adopt the same attitude towards people who text and do tiktoks while behind the wheel. Personally I don't think either should result in losing a license, at least not for the first offense

zirgs 3y ago

In my country the state now confiscates cars of drunk drivers if their BAC is above 0.15%. And they also get criminally prosecuted - having a criminal record can seriously fuck up their lives. But some people still choose to drive drunk.

mitchdoogle 3y ago
Punishments are not an effective deterrent. That is, you could increase the punishment ten fold and people would still do it. What matters is if people think they will get caught. You put up driving check points every weekend around the nightlife areas and you will see a decline, because people will feel more certain they will be caught, even if the punishment is not as bad.