I just don’t understand drinking and driving

Yup, you've already asked for my family history, marital history, educational history, and work history--so far.

True, you haven't asked for my shoe size, the type of car I drive, or my social security number yet.

You assume I'm interested in that personal info about yourself that you chose to share--I couldn't be less interested. In fact, I wish you were better able to look beyond your own immediate limited experience when discussing a topic.

This isn't match.com, I can't think of a single logical or legitimate reason I have to satisfy your insatiable curiosity about me. Go fixate on someone else.

People should think about that before they drink and drive.

LOL we all and I mean all but you had share information to one degree or another so that others here had backgrounds as to where we are coming from and form more then one dimensional pictures of ourselves.

This is normal and almost universal behavior on all social networks and if one very major poster reveals zero about herself and at the same time used informations that others had shared as weapons against them that person stand out.

So what are you hiding that you must constantly filter out the kind of personal informations that all the rest of us include in our postings as a matter of course?

You mean before they are charge with the crime of DUI as it is not a crime to have a drink and drive at the moment!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is a completely legal behavior as long as you do not go over a limit.

But you wish a fear of being charge with a crime even it innocent to stop people from doing legal behaviors it would seems.

Give it a rest.

I think you're nuts.

Yes, you certainly do have to think about drinking and driving before you get charged with a DUI crime--that's how you avoid a DUI arrest.

If people are concerned about the penalties for DUI, or any DUI related accident, they should think about it before they drink and drive--to be sure they don't drink over the legal limit, or to arrange for alternate transportation if they might drink over the legal limit.

Worrying about the penalties after driving drunk and getting arrested is a little too late.

Why in the hell should anyone need to think about the DUI laws when having a beer or some wine with a meal and then driving home.

You nuts had not yet lower the limit to the point that a drink or even two will come near to the limits for a normal size adult.

Once more that is a completely legal action at least at the moment.

Ok, I see what you all were talking about now.

Ask Thom Swift that question.

No I am asking you as driving with trace amounts of alcohol is not a crime at the moment nor should it be in any sane society.

And I said absolutely nothing about driving with trace amounts of alcohol. Where on earth are you coming from.

You were bemoaning the fate of those found guilty at trial for DUI manslaughter, because they were going to get locked up and have the key thrown away.

My response was that those people should have thought about those potential penalties before drinking and driving.

You seem to have lost track of the discussion and dragged in people driving with only trace amounts of alcohol in their system. And you seem to be inferring I am trying to get the legal BAC level lowered, which I am not.

Most of us are talking about drunk driving in this thread. I'm not sure what you're talking about since you're dragging in everything under the sun, relevant or not.

http://thenewprohibition.com/the-legal-limit.cfm


The Legal Limit: 0.08/0.05The average drunk driver involved in a fatal crash has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.19—that's more than twice the legal limit. It would be logical to primarily go after those reckless alcohol-abusers. But, anti-alcohol activists have chosen to focus on drivers with low-BACs.



During the 1990's, MADD, the National Safety Council and Ralph Nader's Public Citizen lobbied for a federally mandated reduction of the legal limit from 0.1 to 0.08. Activists claimed that lowering the legal limit would save hundreds of lives a year. NHTSA officials, including James Fell, now of PIRE, regularly urged lawmakers to tie federal highway funding to lower state legal limits. In 2000 Congress granted their wish by threatening to withhold highway funds from states that didn't lower their legal limit. All states eventually fell in line.

Despite the decrease in BAC limits, the percentage of total traffic fatalities involving alcohol-impaired drivers has remained relatively stagnant for the last decade. And despite claims that passage of .08 would save 600-800 lives annually, lowering the legal limit had virtually no effect on traffic safety. Instead, a study in Contemporary Economic Policy concluded that 0.08 efforts would have been better spent encouraging effective measures against chronic drunken drivers.

It has, however, allowed police to arrest more people—while clogging up the court system, generating revenue through high fines and funneling money to MADD.

Even though the drop to .08 wasn't the life-saving panacea it was held out to be, activists have already begun clamoring for a .05 legal limit. The World Health Organization endorses a worldwide limit of .05 and MADD Canada recently convinced Canadian policymakers to lower the country's legal limit to .05 BAC.

"I thought the emphasis on .08 laws was not where the emphasis should have been placed. The majority of crashes occur with high blood-alcohol levels, the .15, .18 and .25 drinkers. Lowering the blood-alcohol concentration was not a solution to the alcohol problem."
— Candy Lightner, MADD FounderAnti-Alcohol ActivistsRobert Wood Johnson Foundation Alcohol Justice
(formerly the Marin Institute) Center for Science in the Public Interest American Medical Association National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse Join Together Mothers Against Drunk Driving Pacific Institute for Research and EvaluationCenter on Alcohol Marketing and YouthGovernment Activists
Prohibitionist PoliciesAlcohol Advertising Bans Alcohol Sale Restrictions Zero Tolerance for Alcohol Consumption Alcohol Sensors in All Cars Sobriety Checkpoints Interlocks for All Offenders The Legal Limit: 0.08/0.05 Alcohol Tax Increases
Bad StatsContact Us

.08 is only consider drunk driving in most states because congress force the states to set that limit.

It is not basic on any facts or logic see the curve in the above posting.

So out of curiosity, if there wasn't a bar such as the BAC to judge being fit to drive, how would you handle it?

How would you make the determination that someone wasn't fit to be behind the wheel?

http://alcoholfacts.org/CrashCourseOnMADD.htmlI


. The Drunken Driving Problem
MADD recognizes that the problem of drunken driving has now largely been reduced to a "hard core of alcoholics who do not respond to public appeal." 1 Most drivers who have had something to drink have low blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and few are involved in fatal accidents or crashes. 2 On the other hand, while only a few drivers have BAC's higher than .15, many of those drivers have fatal crashes. 3 For example, almost half of fatally injured drunk drivers have a BAC of .16 (which is twice the legal limit) or higher. 4

The biggest problem in reducing drunk driving fatalities now consists of the hard core of alcoholic drivers who repeatedly drive with BAC's of .15 or higher. But MADD has now decided to go after social drinkers and to eliminate driving after drinking any amount of alcohol beverage. This change appears to reflect the influence of a growing neo-prohibitionist movement within MADD.

The founding president of MADD, Candy Lightner, left in disgust from the organization that she herself created because of its change in goals. "It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned," she says. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving." 5 Ms. Lightner has emphasized the importance of distinguishing between alcohol and drinking on one hand and drunk driving on the other. 6

Ms. Lightner has apparently put her finger on the problem when she says that if MADD really wants to save lives, it will go after the real problem drivers. 7 Instead, it has become temperance-oriented

You seem to have missed my previous post.


Prior, to the .08 legal limit, when we had .10 as the legal limit, we had a higher legal BAC limit than all other comparable countries.

So, lowering it to .08 also brought us into line with a good part of the world--it wasn't just about Congress and MADD.

Go right ahead and argue for an increase in the legal BAC level. I don't think it would be a good idea. But I don't think most of your opinions about revising laws are good ideas, so nothing new there.

I would pick a level where drinking have some meaningful effect on the crash and death rate not far far far down the curve and I would get those people with such high levels off the highways forever.

It was all about madd and congress bending to madd it had no connection to science and the known relationships between bad outcomes when driving with any given blood alcohol levels.

So, a level .08 is 3-4 drinks within a 2 hour window for a person weighing 140 lbs. Naturally, the more a person weighs, the more they can consume before their BAC reads a .08.

3 - 4 drinks in 2 hours for someone weighing about what a 17 - 24 year old does.

You don't think that's acceptable? Hell, even if you enjoy 1- 2 drinks in 2 hours, if you weight 140 lbs you're only going to hit .01 - .04 on the BAC. So you having a glass of wine with your wife over dinner won't be an issue at all.

There are an absolute ton of crap statistics out there, of course, but from a 'society' standpoint (which you took in an earlier post) it would make sense that you set the bar at your lowest-common denominator (140 lbs) rather than your mid-range (165 - 200).

How's that sit with you?

(reference: http://www.mdt.mt.gov/publications/docs/brochures/safety/mdt_bac_and_you.pdf )

Sorry the government own information does not show that .08 level drinker is all that more likely then a driver with 0.0 level to be in an accident with very bad outcomes occurring at must higher levels.

But what the hell few of our laws relate to the real universe.