Are DUI Laws Excessive in your state ... ?

[riptides]

My states DUI laws are fine.

Some of my states lawyers are better than fine, some are worse.

I am sure others, in other states will agree.

Case in point. lawn mower operators, and tractor operators, busted for DUI. Go figure,

 

[DieselPower]

Yes I'll bite.

Did your state have DUI laws on the books at the time of these incidents? If yes, then your evidence appears to prove they don't stop drunk driving.

Just like the death penalty does not stop murder.

Yes they do and their not strict enough. No matter what the penalty you will never stop all DWI/DUI drivers but the harsher the penalty the less there will be breaking the law.

 

[jgrreed]

These data also call into question driving regulations that prohibit hand-held cell phones and permit hands-free cell phones, because no significant differences were found in the impairments to driving caused by these two modes of cellular communication.

I've heard that before too. I don't understand how using a bluetooth device is any different than talking to a passenger?? Is it the time spent dialing?? Or worse yet, texting??

Having not seen the research myself, my only comment is that unless the study was specifically designed to test whether or not BT devices are any different than handhelds, it can't be taken as gospel. These 'side findings' in any study can often be very misleading.

-Jer.

 

[JohnDeere4300]

Having a law on the books and enforcing it are two different matters. Too many people are never arrested because they have friends or influence.

The mayor of a small nearby town was stopped by the police for reckless driving and was found to be drunk and the police drove him home and never mentioned it. Months later, he was drunk again at 2 in the morning, driving a city vehicle, and attempted to drive across the Causeway, the worlds longest bridge and also a toll bridge. He crashed through the toll gate, tearing it down, without paying and was stopped 4 miles out on the bridge driving with no lights on a bridge with no lights. The traffic stop was videotaped on the police recorder and the police just drove him home and issued no tickets. When this hit the news the mayor calmed things down by agreeing to pay for the damaged toll gate. Yes, he is still mayor although the policeman who was following orders from his superior was fired.

Though I believe that DWI should get the stiffest of all traffic penalties and that 2nd and 3rd offenses should be even more severe, we must make the penalties equal to the crime. We can not put an armed robber who shoots and injures someone in the commission of his crime in jail for 10 years and put someone in jail for a simple DWI for 20 years.

We are talking about DWI laws Excessive in your state...?

Not Mayors, cops, And robbers.

( I.M.H.O,) You may want to start a Thread about robbers,

I have a stronger sentence than 20 years about people that rob and
kill.

 

[EddieWalker]

Wisconsin AG wants to make a first DUI NOT a crime. He also wants to give judges the option of probation for a second offense instead of mandatory jail time.

He does make some sense to me. He wants to beef up the punishments for subsequent offenses and legalize roadside checks etc.

First drunken driving offense shouldn't be crime, Van Hollen says - JSOnline

When I was arrested for Drunk Driving, it changed my way of thinking and forced me to change my way of life. Anybody who says the harshness of the crime doesn't deter people from repeating it is wrong. While I know some who kept on drinking and driving, I know others who just like me changed.

A few examples of my behavior before the DWI. I was arrested a few months before that for disorderly conduct in San Francisco. They put me in the drunk tank for the night and let me go the next morning. No record of it, nothing but an miserable nights sleep. A year before that I was arrested for fighting in a bar. I started it, as I had other fights, and it turned into a brawl. When drunk, that was fun for me. Again, I spent the night in the drunk tank and went home the next day without anything on my record. A few years before that, I was arrested for fighting while in the Marine Corps over in Indonesia. The police kept me at the station for awhile, but then decided against it and droped me off in front of the US Embassy. No charges or anything was ever brought up against me. A year before that, in Cameroon, I stole an Embassy car and took it off roading with another Marine. He was an exemplary Marine and this was totally out of character for him. Not sure what happened, but he and I got drunk and he went for the ride with me while we tore up Yaounde. I even managed to blow up the transmission. It wasn't a good day when I woke up, but like all the other times, I talked my way out of it and nothing happened.

Every time I got away with being stupid, I just kept doing it. Getting charged and going in front of the judge, pleading guilty and paying my fine really was a wake up call for me. Until you've been through the process, you have no idea what it's like. TV isn't close. It's all mental and incredibly embarrassing. Feeling ashamed for what I'd done forced me to rethink my life and change the direction that I was going.

If you think that I would have done this without getting arrested, I would argue that my history proves otherwise. I tend to do things to the extreme, and being stupid was something that I took allot of pride in. Why? I have no idea anymore. It's just how I was.

One beer is not worth going through that again. It's not a big deal and there isn't anything in the world worth what it may cause. It doesn't matter what you can handle, or what the legal limit is. If it's so important to have that beer or whatever, then it will wait until you get home.

Sorry for the soapbox.

Eddie

 

[Scooby074]

I don't understand how using a bluetooth device is any different than talking to a passenger?? Is it the time spent dialing?? Or worse yet, texting??

-Jer.

Its more the point of being ingrosed in a conversation in person or by cell that causes the problems not the devices themselves. Cells are worse though, because one of the participants in the conversation is unaware of the situition the driver is in. (ie: they keep talking when the driver is trying to concentrate on driving)

From the study found here :

http://www.hss.caltech.edu/courses/2004-05/winter/psy20/StrayerJohnston.pdf.
"The principal findings are that (a) when participants were engaged
in cell-phone conversations, they missed twice as many simulated traf-
fic signals as when they were not talking on the cell phone and took
longer to react to those signals that they did detect; (b) these deficits
were equivalent for handheld and hands-free cell-phone users; and (c)
tracking error increased when participants used the cell phone to per-
form an active, attention-demanding word-generation task but not
when they performed a shadowing task."

I looked into some of these studies earlier in the year. Nova Scotia just made a law requiring hands free calling. Truth is, either hands free or handset is the same distraction as a conversation. The only advantage to BT is that you dont have the added distraction of finding the phone, the actual conversation is just as distracting. I imagine texting would be that much worse as it requires you to look at the actual phone.





Eddie, Im glad that the DUI changed your life. You sounded like you were on the road to nowhere, fast. I think the point of the AG is that people make mistakes, as you and I myself know. Your second offense is when you should have been brought before the judge. Who knows, you might have learned your lesson then. I agree that sentencing is a deterrent.

When i was young and stupid, i had a DUI myself. I was arrested and brought to the station, but not charged because I blew a 0.09 and due to the old machine it was within the margin of error. It scared the snit out of me. When your sitting there in the chair with the officers and that robotic little box thats going to decide your fate, the seriousness of the situation goes through your head. If i was charged, i would have lost my job.Rent. food. all that stuff. Thats why i advocate leniency or even an alternative sentence ;like community service when a person is SLIGHTLY over, as i myself was. It was a second chance, and I learned my lesson from it.

I also have friends that have had multiple convictions and have served time because of it. Have they learned, NO. I think thats the issue too. YOU have to want to change. All the laws in the world cant make you do something that you dont want to do.

 

[JohnDeere4300]

I am the opposite end of the spectrum. I prefer the law in Iran. if caught driving drunk it is summary execution on the spot.

Some of you will say that is too harsh, but once citizens know the law is enforced there are zero drunk drivers, instead there are a lot of people staggering along the roadways.

(I,M,H,O,) What i think they should do to a drunk that has no respect
for any human life. If they would do this i think that a lot of people
would think twice about drinking and driving.
If a person should kill another person while (D.W.I.).

(THEY SHOULD ARREST THAT PERSON TAKE HIM TO THE FRONT OF
THE COURT HOUSE AND HANG THAT PERSON ON THE SPOT.

 

[jgrreed]

Its more the point of being ingrosed in a conversation in person or by cell that causes the problems not the devices themselves. Cells are worse though, because one of the participants in the conversation is unaware of the situition the driver is in. (ie: they keep talking when the driver is trying to concentrate on driving)

From the study found here :

http://www.hss.caltech.edu/courses/2004-05/winter/psy20/StrayerJohnston.pdf.
"The principal findings are that (a) when participants were engaged
in cell-phone conversations, they missed twice as many simulated traf-
fic signals as when they were not talking on the cell phone and took
longer to react to those signals that they did detect; (b) these deficits
were equivalent for handheld and hands-free cell-phone users; and (c)
tracking error increased when participants used the cell phone to per-
form an active, attention-demanding word-generation task but not
when they performed a shadowing task."

I looked into some of these studies earlier in the year. Nova Scotia just made a law requiring hands free calling. Truth is, either hands free or handset is the same distraction as a conversation. The only advantage to BT is that you dont have the added distraction of finding the phone, the actual conversation is just as distracting. I imagine texting would be that much worse as it requires you to look at the actual phone.

Hi Jason,

Did they make mention of the difference between a live conversation with a passenger vs. a cel phone conversation?? Good point about the fact that a passenger knows what's going on in the vehicle, whereas someone on the other end of a cel doesn't.

-Jer.

 

[jgrreed]

Sorry for the soapbox.

You're a big man for sharing that Ed, truly. It takes guts to do that.

-Jer.

 

[ray66v]

My comment was directed at the statement that the pics were proof that the laws don't work. I'd say there'd be a lot more pics to see if there weren't the laws we already have.
-Jer.

I actually did not say that, here' what I said:
"Did your state have DUI laws on the books at the time of these incidents? If yes, then your evidence appears to prove they don't stop drunk driving."

Notice the statement is: "appears to prove". Meaning the vehicles were, for what ever reason, damaged. And if that damage, as was implied by the poster, was due to drunk driving, it certainly would support the hypothesis that people were driving drunk, even though it was apparently illegal. I never said, that it was solid evidence. You read it that way, which was incorrect.

I also never said: "The laws don't work", You misread read my statement again. I said: "they don't stop drunk driving". Meaning the laws do not stop people from driving drunk, this is also a reasonable conclusion because these people were represented as having done such. Your arguing that the laws work by suggesting they have stopped a particular unknown, and assumed, number of drunk drivers, a completely different point, which may be true, but is not substantiated by these photos.

The laws were not written to simply reduce drunk driving, the current blood alcohol levels are so low, their goal is clear, to stop it entirely. So far, they have failed.

How do you make the argument that increased penalties will stop drunk driving when life without parole, and the death penalty has not stopped murder. What are you going to threaten to do to them, execute their family?

Obviously, their hoping the laws will compel the drunk to make plans while they are coherent. This is also somewhat unrealistic since career drinkers rarely are, and often have nothing left to lose. If you have ever tried to reason with a drunk, you should realize they generally don't care very much about anything. Let alone think rationally.

Again my contention is that no law can, or will, STOP drunk driving. Only a human can stop them. A law does not stop them from drinking, and it is not there to take the keys away from them, or give them a ride home.

As long as alcohol is available you will have drunk drivers.