Minotaur029 wrote:Marsupialized on this topic = 100% correct.

Then again, I hate cops about 87.5% as much as Marsupialized does. It's a proven fact.

i think he is 100 percent wrong.

well maybe not.

a lot of it is to make money via fines
i'll agree there.

other than that
he's 100 percent wrong

fedaykin13 wrote:

slincire wrote:

fedaykin13 wrote:

slincire wrote:

fedaykin13 wrote:Have any of you that say the drunk driving laws are too harsh been charged with them?

I don't think they are too harsh
and I was charged with a DUI

it sucked
it cost me a ton of money
and hell yeah its harsh
but ya know what
i will never ever make the mistake again
ever
there are plenty of things you can do to avoid driving under the influence
walk, take a cab, wait til your sober
there is no excuse

Yeah, but say you've drank two beers, and are completely cabable of driving, and do drive, and your blood alcohol level is higher than the arbitrarily imposed limit, which may even have been your case, don't you think getting fucked in the ass is a bit steep of a price to pay?

no.
we know what the limit is
it's not a mystery
you should be aware of yourself enough to know
"i shouldn't drive now because if i get pulled over i'll be over the limit"
or you know,
"i might be impaired and hurt someone"

either one

simple as that.

What about, "I'm not impaired, so I know I won't hurt anyone, but I might be over the legal limit, so, since I might get fucked in the ass, I won't drive."?

That's the situation I would encounter more often, if I had a car. In either case you propose, I agree with you, you should not drive.

Whatever, it all does suck though. Some people will be unjustly penalized, some will be unjustly unpenalized. The only way it could be fair is if everything were judged on a situatinal basis, which will never happen and would open new doors to lack of fairness if it did.

I still don't think it sucks or is unjust.
I would say a very large portion of people that have a drivers
license know (or should) that driving under the influence
could either
a. hurt someone
b. get you arrested

you know what you have to do to avoid that
if you choose not to, and you
a. hurt someone
b. get arrested

how is that unjust?
you can't blame anyone other than yourself.

I know everyone likes to say to themselves they can drink after a couple beers
maybe
but lets say you had a couple of beers
and you killed someone
are you telling me you wouldn't think to yourself
"if i was sober maybe this wouldn't have happened"?

If I'd drank two beers and killed someone while driving, I would have killed them without any beers. If I'd drank a half bottle of bourbon, then I'd feel guilty. But, everyone has a different tolerance, which is where the unfairness of an arbitrary level comes in; it has to be unfair because every situation is different. If you're arguing zero tolerance (no alcohol at all), then every situation is the same, yes or no, true or false, 1 or 0. But, when a level that means different things to different people is used as the measure of legal and illegal, it is inherently unjust.

slincire wrote:

fedaykin13 wrote:

slincire wrote:

fedaykin13 wrote:

slincire wrote:

fedaykin13 wrote:Have any of you that say the drunk driving laws are too harsh been charged with them?

I don't think they are too harsh
and I was charged with a DUI

it sucked
it cost me a ton of money
and hell yeah its harsh
but ya know what
i will never ever make the mistake again
ever
there are plenty of things you can do to avoid driving under the influence
walk, take a cab, wait til your sober
there is no excuse

Yeah, but say you've drank two beers, and are completely cabable of driving, and do drive, and your blood alcohol level is higher than the arbitrarily imposed limit, which may even have been your case, don't you think getting fucked in the ass is a bit steep of a price to pay?

no.
we know what the limit is
it's not a mystery
you should be aware of yourself enough to know
"i shouldn't drive now because if i get pulled over i'll be over the limit"
or you know,
"i might be impaired and hurt someone"

either one

simple as that.

What about, "I'm not impaired, so I know I won't hurt anyone, but I might be over the legal limit, so, since I might get fucked in the ass, I won't drive."?

That's the situation I would encounter more often, if I had a car. In either case you propose, I agree with you, you should not drive.

Whatever, it all does suck though. Some people will be unjustly penalized, some will be unjustly unpenalized. The only way it could be fair is if everything were judged on a situatinal basis, which will never happen and would open new doors to lack of fairness if it did.

I still don't think it sucks or is unjust.
I would say a very large portion of people that have a drivers
license know (or should) that driving under the influence
could either
a. hurt someone
b. get you arrested

you know what you have to do to avoid that
if you choose not to, and you
a. hurt someone
b. get arrested

how is that unjust?
you can't blame anyone other than yourself.

I know everyone likes to say to themselves they can drink after a couple beers
maybe
but lets say you had a couple of beers
and you killed someone
are you telling me you wouldn't think to yourself
"if i was sober maybe this wouldn't have happened"?

If I'd drank two beers and killed someone while driving, I would have killed them without any beers. If I'd drank a half bottle of bourbon, then I'd feel guilty. But, everyone has a different tolerance, which is where the unfairness of an arbitrary level comes in; it has to be unfair because every situation is different. If you're arguing zero tolerance (no alcohol at all), then every situation is the same, yes or no, true or false, 1 or 0. But, when a level that means different things to different people is used as the measure of legal and illegal, it is inherently unjust.

I don't want to argue too much about tolerance,
but are you telling me that having a couple of beers
is not going to effect you at all?

fraction of a second type thing?

of course it is.
and in this state you have an accident your really not going to wonder
if you hadn't of had "just a couple of beers" maybe this wouldn't have happened?

maybe you wouldn't
I would. I think a lot of people would

But the point is this.
we all know what the limit is and how to avoid getting arrested.
its not like a speed limit where
it changes from 50 to 35 and you get nailed for speeding
it is constant so you know what it is at all times
and should have no excuse for avoiding and trouble that comes along with it.

I probably sound like a recovering alcoholic but i assure you
far from it.

all these "normal" people that cry about how they have had their life ruined from "one or two beers" and got caught.

i can practically guarantee a very large percentage of them
did NOT get caught a number of other times where they had more than a couple of beers and probably knew they shouldn't be driving

so (not directed at you)
if you feel the law is unjust, i'll respect your opinion
but spare me the crap about your average joe
who never did anything wrong and got his life ruined
that's 1 in a million

oh and by the way, the united states has the highest blood alcohol limit in the world, shared only by the united kingdom, malaysia, mexico, malta, new zealand, ireland and canada.

ours is 0.08 whereas most countries fall between 0.04 and 0.05. by this standard [going by a rough estimate on body weight + alcohol consumption (per 12 oz of beer)], if i consumed 2 beers in an hour i would fall under the limit. but because of my low tolerance, dude i'd be a little drunk and shouldn't be driving. if you ask me, the limit is pretty fair.

slincire wrote:If I'd drank two beers and killed someone while driving, I would have killed them without any beers. If I'd drank a half bottle of bourbon, then I'd feel guilty. But, everyone has a different tolerance, which is where the unfairness of an arbitrary level comes in; it has to be unfair because every situation is different. If you're arguing zero tolerance (no alcohol at all), then every situation is the same, yes or no, true or false, 1 or 0. But, when a level that means different things to different people is used as the measure of legal and illegal, it is inherently unjust.

Yeah it just is not as cut and dry as the new fangled militancy against drunk driving tells it. People get into serious auto accidents over all sorts of stupid shit besides being loaded. How many people a year die because someone can’t stay off their cellphone? Or has unruly, untrained brats in their backseat that they distract them with forcing them to multi-task displining kids and driving a car? Or when I pay more attention to what I want to listen to in my CD player than the road in front of me?

I don’t drive drunk anymore, but I used to be a total fucking lush in my 20’s who lived in a rural N. Wisconsin. I order to party you basically had to drive to get to shit, as opposed to where I live know where all the bars and clubs are a reasonable walk or short cab ride away. Anyway I drove drunk fucking thousands of times in the 1990’s and the casualty count of my admittedly irresponsible behavior was a big fucking goose egg nor did I ever get charged. The vast majority of incidents of drunk driving do no damage to the drunk driver nor anyone else.

The way some people talk you would think that as soon as you get to .08 BAC you are a guaranteed stone cold murder. It’s bullshit.

charliedon'tsurf wrote: Anyway I drove drunk fucking thousands of times in the 1990’s and the casualty count of my admittedly irresponsible behavior was a big fucking goose egg nor did I ever get charged. The vast majority of incidents of drunk driving do no damage to the drunk driver nor anyone else.

The way some people talk you would think that as soon as you get to .08 BAC you are a guaranteed stone cold murder. It’s bullshit.

I don't understand when people resort to this logic
so you drove drunk a million times and never hurt anybody
me too..
that doesn't mean anything
at least to me.

You got lucky
so did I
let's be thankful
or something

fedaykin 13 wrote:I don't want to argue too much about tolerance,
but are you telling me that having a couple of beers
is not going to effect you at all?

fraction of a second type thing?

of course it is.
and in this state you have an accident your really not going to wonder
if you hadn't of had "just a couple of beers" maybe this wouldn't have happened?

maybe you wouldn't
I would. I think a lot of people would

But the point is this.
we all know what the limit is and how to avoid getting arrested.
its not like a speed limit where
it changes from 50 to 35 and you get nailed for speeding
it is constant so you know what it is at all times
and should have no excuse for avoiding and trouble that comes along with it.

I probably sound like a recovering alcoholic but i assure you
far from it.

all these "normal" people that cry about how they have had their life ruined from "one or two beers" and got caught.

i can practically guarantee a very large percentage of them
did NOT get caught a number of other times where they had more than a couple of beers and probably knew they shouldn't be driving

so (not directed at you)
if you feel the law is unjust, i'll respect your opinion
but spare me the crap about your average joe
who never did anything wrong and got his life ruined
that's 1 in a million

Hmmm. I don't think my reaction is effected by one or two beers, but I can drink a lot. And maybe it is, but I don't think enough to make me crash when I wouldn't otherwise. If I did kill someone after those few beers, you're probably right, guilt would get me and I'd think about it. I think I'd be wrong if I concluded they were the causal factor though, but I would feel some guilt, maybe I'd stop drinking altogether. Driving should be avoided at all costs though, drunk or sober. Public transportation is so much better.

Anyway, I think the system of gauging drunkenness is inherently unfair, understand why the system is that way (practicality, falability of cops in cauging drunkenness, etc.), and honestly don't think much about it usually, just started with Marsupialized's post on the other page. If you're too drunk to control you car, you're a dick for driving your car.

Colonel Panic wrote:I heard that the cops in Wisconsin came up with a good trick a few years back. The story goes that they put a sign about a mile down the road from an off-ramp, that read:

"SLOW DOWN

DRIVER SOBRIETY CHECKPOINT AHEAD"

Then they waited at the off-ramp for the drunks to exit the highway. Supposedly, this tactic significantly resulted in a significantly higher ratio of arrests.

If people are stupid enough to fall for that then they deserve it. I don't know about WI, but in my state of Nunya I have never heard of a sobriety check on an interstate proper.

kenoki wrote:oh and by the way, the united states has the highest blood alcohol limit in the world, shared only by the united kingdom, malaysia, mexico, malta, new zealand, ireland and canada.

ours is 0.08 ...

It actually varies from state to state. I believe 0.08 is a federally-mandated minimum, though some states have more stringent DUI laws.

In Illinois it's 0.08.

As far as the effects of a given number of drinks goes, that depends largely on the person's body mass and tolerance, and also the period of time over which the drinks were consumed.

For instance, 2 beers slammed within 15 minutes is going to affect you a whole lot more than 15 beers drunk over the course of 2 hours.

Colonel Panic wrote:

kenoki wrote:oh and by the way, the united states has the highest blood alcohol limit in the world, shared only by the united kingdom, malaysia, mexico, malta, new zealand, ireland and canada.

ours is 0.08 ...

It actually varies from state to state. I believe 0.08 is a federally-mandated minimum, though some states have more stringent DUI laws.

In Illinois it's 0.08.

As far as the effects of a given number of drinks goes, that depends largely on the person's body mass and tolerance, and also the period of time over which the drinks were consumed.

For instance, 2 beers slammed within 15 minutes is going to affect you a whole lot more than 15 beers drunk over the course of 2 hours.

You're right about states having the final say. As far as comparing countries, the actual limit isn't as important as the penalties attached to it.