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+--- Thread: BAC.08 (/thread-2942.html)
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- Thomas - 10-24-2000
Congress passed, and the President signed, a bill to reduce the federal determination of drunkeness to .08 blood alcohol. The feds have blackmailed all fifty states into doing same by penalizing those who do not with a 2 percent loss in highway funding.
First, JDM is likely stirring wherever he is.
Second, aren't those highway funds our money? I would rather see more money go to public transportation anyway, but this is not the way to encourage it.
Third, if you think .08 is the end of the matter you are living in a closet. The next step--give a few years--will be .06, and then down until it reaches zero. Zealots know no boundaries.
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 10-24-2000).]
- Innkeeper - 10-24-2000
Couldn't agree with you more. First thing I said to Mrs IK last night was I hoped we had a good restaurant within walking distance when it hits zero. Maine was the first state to go to .08, so watch us for future developments. Will do all we can from here to stop it.
- Bucko - 10-24-2000
Well, Jerry and I fought about this one -- I support it. The data is there to show that at around 0.07 to .08 there is a dramatic decrease in cognitive and physical performance, thus more accidents. 0.08 is a fair law IMHO.
Bucko
- barnesy - 10-24-2000
I like the idea of lowering the BAC. I may be off base, but many of the European nations are at or near 0 BAC and have much stiffer DUI laws and penalties. Consiquently, they have fewer problems with drunk driving. This doesn't seem to have stopped their consumption of wine. Well, thats my tetradrachma's worth.
Barnesy
- mrdutton - 10-24-2000
I don't support the federal legislation that blackmail's the individual states into compliance. That should be challenged immediately.
However, I do support lower BAC levels to those that are in line with about 0.08.
I also support public transportation rather than enlarging roads or increasing the number of highways through new construction.
I'd love to be able to go out for an evening of dining, dancing, prancing and imbibing, knowing that I would not have to drive, but could use the public system. But sorry, no such thing exists around here, not yet.
- winoweenie - 10-24-2000
WoW! Now isn`t this precious. Bucko, if you can show me that the .02 difference makes a difference to the average MALE driver (no girls this ain`t a MCP message, jes` the man normally drives home from the party UNLESS he`s way above ), then I`ll go along. Heck-fire, I`ve gotten up, brushed my tooth, had two cups of coffee and STILL blew a .09. If we continue letting the idiots in Wash.(DC) dictate what wee can or can`t do the lil` darlins from MADD, SADD, PLAID, and the gang from GLAD will be telling us the limits(BAC) we may sustain in our family-rooms. C`mon fer` heckie-poo, It`s our Money, Lives, And Future to tell them to stick-it. We here in Az are not knuckling. winoweenie
- Drew - 10-25-2000
I was hoping this wouldn't come up but I've been reading the paper also and I gotta put my two cents in. I just buried two close friends this past Thursday, police officers in Baltimore, killed together after being struck by a drunk driver in a pickup truck that ran a stop sign doing 50+ mph. Both officers were killed instantly and leave 3 children (3,4 and 9 years of age) between them and families. The officers were patrolling together in their marked cruiser in a residential neighborhood around 7:30 P.M. on a clear early evening when the driver of a 4wd pick up "T-boned" them....he states he never saw the stop sign.....his BAL was 0.13. Yesterday I went again to a funeral home to pay respects for the sister of an Officer, 44 years old and a passenger in a vehicle being driven by a friend whose BAL was 0.10....he didn't see the tree. The family says they didn't realize that the friend had been drinking when he arrived to pick up the woman.....the accident occurred very shortly after they left together. I'm not one much on statistics but the government says a person is 8 times more likely to have an accident at 0.08 than sober, and this might be true. What I do know is that I've been a Police Officer with Baltimore for 29 years, seen hundreds of alcohol related driving fatalities and thousands of alcohol related driving injuries and I can say without question that the majority of the drivers were not falling down, sloppy, typical Hollywood movie drunks! They almost appeared normal....and their blood alcohol levels, on the average, were between 0.05 and 0.15. I know the argument is that this law criminalizes the social drinker who is also a stand up, honorable, I love my wife and go to church on Sunday citizen, and doesn't necessarily target the chronic alcoholic. The problem is when you stand a chronic alcoholic next to Mr. honorable, who both have blood alcohol levels in the range of 0.05 to 0.10, they both show identical driving impairments, so here are my questions.
1. Is it a greater or lesser crime if the alcoholic kills you while driving as compared toMr.Honorable? 2. If the probability exists for injury to others while driving with a BAL close to 0.08, why defend the social drinker and condemn the chronic alcoholic? 3. Mr. honorable destroys your perfectly fine set of wheels, injuries you, causing missed work and the rest of your life for a while...and says "I just went to a restaurant and then dancing..." will your reply be "No problem!"?
I know in my heart that the majority of those convicted of Driving While Intoxicated did not mean to destroy property, injure or kill...there was no malice towards their victims, their only intent was to drive somewhere.
Drew
[This message has been edited by Drew (edited 10-25-2000).]
- hotwine - 10-25-2000
Well said, Drew. Very well said!
Gil
- Innkeeper - 10-25-2000
Amen. Well, unamen. Let's just hope it doesn't go any lower. In the years since we went to .08 in Maine we have have one accident involving a driver below .1 and he had other problems. Only a few have been apprehended for driving under .1. Fortunately we don't have random stops up here. This leads me to truly belive that very few people are seriouly impaied under .1, and virtually none below .08. So, let's just see where all this goes.
- winoweenie - 10-25-2000
Drew, I`m sinserely sorry for your loss. However, I would have to have proof that this accident couldn`t have happened if both drivers had been drinking O`Douls all nite. Everything I`ve read points to very little difference in the reaction times from .08 to .10. Sorry Bucko, I`m the product of the mind set that fostered the curmster.winoweenie
- Drew - 10-25-2000
Thanks WW and all board members for your kind thoughts...it's been a rough 12 days for all of the Officers in the Baltimore City Police Dept. and we appreciate any/all support. Please understand that I was not going to bring this up as "soapboxing" after tragic events is not a valid way to debate an issue, especially one as complex as this. All of my thoughts and opinions fall back to years of observation and although not scientific, I feel I'm not too far off. Blood Alcohol Levels differ from person to person according to weight, absorbtion rate (did the individual eat or not)and I believe a psycological factor. Alcohol alters perception and response. I think we've all seen like people who after a drink or two display different behaviors. This is the response that cannot really be measured, and one that is rather mystic. eg. a couple of glasses of wine for me, I'm happy/sleepy. Same for my wife, Happy/energetic. A co-worker named "Charlie"(who really exists), forcefull/aggressive. I could go on and on. Long story short...I don't think the great minds know the magic # for BAL, and as alcohol related accidents are charted and examined, against accidents without alcohol use, new limits are established. Also, here's another thought....fifty years ago speed limits were less, vehicle and population density less, more single lane roads compared to multi lane highways we now have, plus different driving attitudes which all equals continuous changing responses. Like I said in the beginning, a very complex issue. These are just some thoughts on my observations. All my friends know that I'm the permanent designated driver and they take advantage of that. Aint it great to have friends?
Drew
- mrdutton - 10-26-2000
Drew, you have my support - 100 percent.
There is nothing wrong at all in using anecdotal information to conduct a qualitative analysis. And that is what you have done.
As complex an issue that it is, the bottom line is still relatively simple (to me). As long as there are people who insist on drinking and driving to the point where they cause harm to others, then we should have a law that punishes them for their un-acceptable behavior.
In Japan, drinking and driving is a criminal offense. However, Japan has an especially sophisticated public transportation system. One does not need a car to get from point A to B and back again.
So another part to this complex issue of social drinking and partying in this country needs to address our lousy public transportation systems.
In Europe and Japan anyone can travel from one place to the next (even the seemingly most remote places) without ever having to rely upon a privately owned automobile.
However, consumption limit legislation should be generated at the local level, not the federal level. I still think it is wrong for the Congress to pass and the President to sign into law legislation that "blackmails" the individual states into a particular behavior. I don't think it is wrong for suggested federal guidelines based on sound research, but the method of foisting those guidelines upon us is wrong.
- Thomas - 10-26-2000
Drew, you make many good points, and I do feel bad about your losses. But as a police officer (there are two in my family) you must also be aware that laws are generally respected by law-abiders, and no matter how many laws go on the books, law-breakers will break them. What bothers me, however, is that in the process of lawmaking reason seems always to give way to political stupidity, or at the least nonsense. If it is so important to keep alcohol off our roads, isn't equally important to provide less funding for highways (to reduce traffic) and more for mass transit? I cannot tell you how many times I wished for a train to get me home, but there are no trains anymore, unless you are in a major city and near a subway entrance, and even then, late at night, you wait until you have already slept off your BAC.08 on the bench before a train arrives.
I am particularly concerned when special interest groups have powerful influence to make laws and I am certainly not happy when our federal government blackmails states into compliance.
On the issue of BAC .08, or any BAC: science suggests this and science suggests that, but as Bucko surely knows, there are as many interpretations of science as there are special interests, and it is only a matter of time when the special interest people come up with new scientific evidence for a BAC .06 and then for lower and lower until the scientific fact seems to tell us that any alcohol level in the blood can be construed as drunkeness.
This fight has been going on since the anti-alcohol Rechabites of ancient times tried to stop the Canaanites, among others, from making and consuming wine. Their descendants finally won a battle in the early twentieth century and now they are developing modern tactics to recapture their winnings--MADD seems to have changed its focus from a reasoned approach to policy to a radical approach to ban alcohol consumption outright--incrementally.
- mrdutton - 10-26-2000
I think Foodie and I agree......with one another........ ghastly thought!
As a lite aside to all of this........ My wife and I are going to Florida in March.
We are taking the auto-train from Lorton, VA to Sanford, FL.
Look out club car.....................
- Thomas - 10-27-2000
Dutton, don't feel too badly about agreeing with me. I have been known to be right almost all of the time, you guys simply haven't figured it out yet.
I made that car-train trip to Florida once. Bring your own wine!
I happen to love train travel; have done it across the country about four times. Sadly, each time I do it, I discover yet another route has been shut down by Amtrak. I also bring my own wine, which is against the rules, but the stuff they serve just doesn't cut it, while the food is generally quite good.
- mrdutton - 10-27-2000
The only problem with bringing your own wines onto the train, I'd think, is that you can not allow them to settle..........
After all, the cars sway and they clickety-clack and they bump and they grind...... almost like an obscene type of disco dance.
How do you allow your wines to settle before you open them? Gads, they all must be bruised.
No wonder then, that the stuff they serve onboard is so bad. I guess that justifies the BYOB........ or is that BYOW?
And yes, the food is good!! So what I do is forgo the wine and drink Jack Daniels instead. Beside, I hardly ever travel by train unless I'm in the south........ and that certainly is justification for the JD.
(Don't you just love my metaphors?)
[This message has been edited by mrdutton (edited 10-27-2000).]
- ddf68 - 11-02-2000
It seems I'm a few days late to this discussion. However, I've got two cents to add.
First, foodie opines that the time will come when someone starts selling .06 BAC as the appropriate limit. That time is here, at least in Colorado. Under Colorado law a BAC of .10 or higher is presumptive evidence that you are DUI (Driving under the influence). A BAC of .05 - .099 is presumptive evidence that you are DWAI (Driving while ability impaired.) The difference between the penalties between the two offenses is marginal--8 points against your license for DWAI as opposed to 12 for DUI, a few days and a few months difference in the minimum and maximum jail sentences, respectively, better chance of a shorter alcohol treatment class for DWAI, etc. But the bottom line is that Colorado already has, in essence, a .05 BAC limit.
Second, what business does the federal government have telling Colorado that this two tiered system is insufficiently strict and that highway funds will be withheld if Colorado doesn't lower the DUI limit to .08? It seems to me that the current Colorado system is more restrictive than one in which there is only one offense which begins at .08. If the people of Colorado think that the .10 DUI/.05 DWAI system is better and more effective than a single .08 DUI system, shouldn't they have the ability to make that decision themselves?
Now I don't particularly like the .05 limit, but in a larger sense I think its bad public policy to have the federal government imposing uniform standards on the states.
ddf
- Drew - 11-02-2000
.05 has been on the books for years for driving while impaired......what does the recent .02 lowering for DUI have to do with that? My experience is that a guilty impairment finding is usually coupled with an accident plus strong evidentiary testimony showing negative driving behaviors equaling reduced fines, no incarceration and a greatly reduced consequence. While I don't like the Federal intervention and would have preferred the States to take the initiative, .05 is nothing new.
Drew
- Thomas - 11-03-2000
What is new in the mix, and has a relationship to the subject at hand, is that as the BAC drops it seems to lend more credence for law enforcement to activate more and more of those intrusive road checkpoints that happen frequently here in NY State--probable cause be damned. The last time it happened to me, the police officer first determined that I was sober, then he scanned my vehicle for contraband (which of course had nothing to do with the alcohol checkpoint delay). His eyes might as well have been gazing in my living room window, for that was how I felt about the violation of my privacy in my car.
When making alcohol policy, the first casualty seems to be reason; if we are not careful, the second will be our rights.
- Drew - 11-03-2000
Foodie, I have to agree with you. We utilize sobriety check points and seat belt safety check points as a tool in high crime areas primarily to eyeball the interior of the vehicle and,if infractions are found, to run wanted checks. You'd be suprised what criminals leave in plain view in their vehicles. Problem is that it does slightly delay the good guys and I don't know a way around it. We here in Baltimore use them exclusivly in high crime areas or on major roads that funnel criminal movement. (open air drug markets etc.)
Drew