4 ms·

MADD was formed in 1980 0.08 level was set in law in the UK in 1967, in France and West Germany in 1970 Most countries have since lowered it to 0.05.

by iso1631 7mo ago

tristor 7mo ago
> Most countries have since lowered it to 0.05. That's the BAC of a healthy male an hour after drinking 2 light beers. That is an absurd limit to set in stone, however there is plenty of evidence to show that /some/ people are impaired at 0.05 BAC. Ultimately it really amounts to a battle between people who want to operate off fuzzy logic and reasonableness and a people who want to use totalitarian enforcement. There is definitely a significant government-funded (and activist pushed) take where /any/ amount of alcohol /any/ time prior to driving is dangerous, which is obviously stupid and incorrect. People should not drink and drive, they should not drive while impaired in any capacity, whether its from their prescription medication, a drink, a joint, or simply a lack of sleep. There is also absolutely nothing wrong for a normal healthy person to have a single glass of wine over a steak dinner and to drive home, which will not in any way physiologically impair you.
- vkou 7mo ago
  > There is definitely a significant government-funded (and activist pushed) take where /any/ amount of alcohol /any/ time prior to driving is dangerous, which is obviously stupid and incorrect. Driving itself is dangerous. Acknowledging this is obviously smart and correct. And while I'm sure that you can drive safely at 100 miles an hour, or after five beers, some objective standard has to be drawn somewhere. If the line were drawn at 0.16, someone would no doubt chime in to explain about how they've got it fully together at 0.17.
  - tristor 7mo ago
    Sure, but that's a strawman of my position. I'm not saying we should not draw a line, I'm saying that drawing a line is required due to how our systems work (in my earlier comment), and then in my reply to /reducing that line which was already nebulous/ I'm pointing out how ridiculous that reduction is. There are people who are impaired at 0.05 BAC. A normal healthy adult male is not. Like many things you can think of them as statistical distributions with outliers. If you slide the BAC level you consider legally impaired (regardless of actual function) you shift how many people will fall in the distribution above the line but without meaningful impairment. I'm not making some radical point here, I'm speaking basic reality.
    - iso1631 7mo ago
      Your assertion this was an American pressure group which didn't form for over a decade after the rest of the western world introduced explicit restrictions is just the brainwashing of American exceptionalism.
      - tristor 7mo ago
        Every single one of the 50 states had to individually sign laws because there is no national law about drunk driving, and MADD was instrumental in the 0.08 legal limit becoming law in the United States. That's a well-founded assertion.

MADD was formed in 1980 0.08 level was set in law in the UK in 1967, in France and West Germany in 1970 Most countries have since lowered it to 0.05.

by iso1631 7mo ago

MADD was formed in 1980 0.08 level was set in law in the UK in 1967, in France and West Germany in 1970 Most countries have since lowered it to 0.05.

tristor 7mo ago

> Most countries have since lowered it to 0.05. That's the BAC of a healthy male an hour after drinking 2 light beers. That is an absurd limit to set in stone, however there is plenty of evidence to show that /some/ people are impaired at 0.05 BAC. Ultimately it really amounts to a battle between people who want to operate off fuzzy logic and reasonableness and a people who want to use totalitarian enforcement. There is definitely a significant government-funded (and activist pushed) take where /any/ amount of alcohol /any/ time prior to driving is dangerous, which is obviously stupid and incorrect. People should not drink and drive, they should not drive while impaired in any capacity, whether its from their prescription medication, a drink, a joint, or simply a lack of sleep. There is also absolutely nothing wrong for a normal healthy person to have a single glass of wine over a steak dinner and to drive home, which will not in any way physiologically impair you.

vkou 7mo ago
> There is definitely a significant government-funded (and activist pushed) take where /any/ amount of alcohol /any/ time prior to driving is dangerous, which is obviously stupid and incorrect. Driving itself is dangerous. Acknowledging this is obviously smart and correct. And while I'm sure that you can drive safely at 100 miles an hour, or after five beers, some objective standard has to be drawn somewhere. If the line were drawn at 0.16, someone would no doubt chime in to explain about how they've got it fully together at 0.17.
- tristor 7mo ago
  Sure, but that's a strawman of my position. I'm not saying we should not draw a line, I'm saying that drawing a line is required due to how our systems work (in my earlier comment), and then in my reply to /reducing that line which was already nebulous/ I'm pointing out how ridiculous that reduction is. There are people who are impaired at 0.05 BAC. A normal healthy adult male is not. Like many things you can think of them as statistical distributions with outliers. If you slide the BAC level you consider legally impaired (regardless of actual function) you shift how many people will fall in the distribution above the line but without meaningful impairment. I'm not making some radical point here, I'm speaking basic reality.
  - iso1631 7mo ago
    Your assertion this was an American pressure group which didn't form for over a decade after the rest of the western world introduced explicit restrictions is just the brainwashing of American exceptionalism.
    - tristor 7mo ago
      Every single one of the 50 states had to individually sign laws because there is no national law about drunk driving, and MADD was instrumental in the 0.08 legal limit becoming law in the United States. That's a well-founded assertion.