I haven't had a drop to drink or any drug more powerful than an aspirin for almost 15 years, so I think it's fair for me to state my indifference to such laws. It can't be seen as some kind of justification, because I'm a teetotaler and I'm not defending any desire to drink or use drugs. But I still think that some of these laws border on "thought police" style control.

Like Sam Kinison used to say, "you don't get drunk hoping to plow into a family of six." I don't want to see that happen, but I'm not sure that setting a blood alcohol limit as low as 0.08% or even 0.1% is appropriate. That's like two beers. I don't know about the rest of you, but I know lots of folks that drive a hell of a lot better after two beers than a lot of other folks do stone cold sober. For that matter, lots of people drive so poorly that you'd have to drop acid and drink a fifth to drive as bad as they do. And now that I think about it, I'm not even sure that would do it.

So why do we use something like blood alcohol limits as an indicator of performance rather than directly measuring performance? It is sort of a way to convict a person of driving poorly even when they haven't? Same with public drunk - It is like you convict a person of bad behavior under the pure presumption that the things they have ingested will make them obnoxious or dangerous. But is this reasonable? Is it fair? Should we also incarcerate manic-depressives that haven't taken their meds? How about people that are just grumpy or excitable?

No one wants an unsafe person on the roads, and most don't want a violently obnoxious person out in public. Surely, it is easy to test for blood alcohol levels, and that's probably the reason why it's done. A quick field sobriety test is obviously easier to do than a real driving test. But does the fact that it is easier really make it right? How many freedoms are we willing to sacrifice for "safety?"

I say lock the DUIs up for a first offense before they kill someone (assuming they didn't kill someone the first time).

Let's see the bleeding hearts put a tourniquet on that one.

My point is that I think that the focus should be placed on this man's performance and not on arbitrary blood alcohol levels. He killed, and his failure to perform well behind the wheel is what caused it. I don't think it was as much an issue of a blood alcohol level of 0.1% as it was that he is a poor and irresponsible driver. Focus on the harm he caused, and not on what he injested, that's my point.

Your thought?

My thought is that even having the arbitarty limit means that some after-the-fact incident must occur to trigger the search. If nothing wrong is happening, then there is no probable cause to check the driver. So the performance is still really at issue.

It's a tough one, that's for sure.

I still think that the issue here is performance, and that maybe blood alcohol limits shouldn't be used as an indicator. I think we would both agree that a person will perform better sober than they will under the influence, all other things being equal. But I also think that there are many things that effect performance, and so I wish performance was the focus instead of blood alcohol levels.

If someone is an extremely poor driver and has a death-causing accident while sober, they are not treated nearly the same way as someone who is at say 0.8% blood alcohol level. But if they are a very poor driver, I think it is just as bad.

Personally, I don't like being around a lot of drinking because I don't drink. When folks get too intoxicated, they irritate the piss out of me. I can't stand liquid courage, false pretense and all the other behaviors that come along with alcoholism and heavy drinking. But I think it's a moral issue, and that it probably shouldn't be illegal, all by itself.

I think that the ways a person acts should be what they are judged by, and not their mental state, even if that mental state is caused by the injestion of alcohol. If they assault someone or cause an accident from incompetence, that's the real harm they've caused and that's what I would focus on. That's just my opinion, and my voice. I can sure see the other side too, and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a performance-based enforcement model worldn't work well at all. But I say watch the behavior and not the blood alcohol level.

You would think that there could not be extremely bad drivers on the road as there is driving tests to pass to obtain license. Then all you need to do is watch one of those "worlds worst drivers" show's and how wrong that is! They have a show called that in australia, where they had a about 10 people or so, each real bad at driving and had various practical and theory tests to do each week. And the worst one at the end of the series gets the priveledge of watching their car get crushed :P One of the women on the show had a habit of knocking everything down in her way because she doesn't like to move, shopping trolley in the way? No problems, just ram it! Whilst others get really nervous and take their hands off the wheel to cover their face. I wonder how they even got a license in the first place.

Perhaps when your driving license is renewed there should be a test to do again.

Problem is there just isn't facilities to test millions of people every year when they renew their license. Even people applying for their first license sometimes have to wait months to book a test due to the huge amount of people.

Then there is the problem of wasting time and money testing drivers which are good, but they cannot know unless they test them.

Or just lower maximum speed limits. But that will piss off the good drivers, they discussed this on the radio before and had people call in. I don't want to be driving at 20km/h less just because some idiot doesn't know how to handle the car at the normal limits.

So what can you do? Public awareness programs? They have TV advirts over here which try and tell people that speed kills. I dont think any of them work though, although there is one ad on at the moment first time I've ever seen that looks real enough to get through to people.

Take a look at holiday road toll's, its amazing how many people die driving their car. And none of them expected to wake up one morning, hop in their car and find themselves dead after.

Eh, I think I've rambled on enough :P Whatever laws or programs that are enforced can never be perfect. We live in a non-perfect world.

One place I'm familar with beside my home town is Odessa, Ukraine. They have pretty strict DUI laws but they aren't enforced. I understand that's the way most Russian (and former Russian) places are. They're like what we Americans would call the "wild west" in that things are more anarchist, not fully, but a little bit more that way. It has a sense of true freedom, but of course with that, you have to take on more personal responsibility.

You can't expect Russian (Ukrainian, Moldovan, Belorussian, etc) laws to necessarily protect you, and you need to protect yourself. A guy that's pulled over for DUI might be able to get off by giving the cop a bottle of vodka. Or it may cost fifty bucks. Or if he's known to be rich, it may cost more. If unliked, he may get his butt kicked pretty badly. But the law is determined right then and there, between you and your cop. You two negotiate the consequences, and it is largely a personal matter between you that determines what your fate will be.

Another part of this is that if you're on the road, you better make sure that you're alert. If someone plows into you because they're drunk, you may not have any recourse. Even if you sued, which you probably wouldn't, but if you did and won, there may not be any funds to be awarded. You probably shouldn't expect the guilty party can help, nor wil the government likely be much help. You're really on your own.

Something else to consider is that if you ride a motorcycle, no matter where you are or how many laws are in place, you're still very much on your own. No matter who's at fault, if you take a hit on a bike, you're probably dead. So you really need to take matters into your own hands, no matter what laws are in place to protect you and no matter how fairly they are enforced. If you're on a bike, your life is very much in your own hands. And while you're not as vulnerable when you're in a car, this same kind of thinking can be adopted there.

When I hear stories from people who have lost someone, I become pretty angry at the drunk that caused the accident. I was friends with a guy in a wheelchair that was crossing the road and was slammed by a drunk in a pickup truck. He and I were in the same college class, and he was a very bright student and very funny. It was shocking to hear the news. He just wasn't there one day. I went by the intersection where he was hit and found myself wanting to run everyone off the road that I thought was driving like idiots because I was so angry.

As an aside, that's so bad of me, this kind of reaction and I'm embarrassed of my tendency to react this way. But I was just really sad about the senseless death of my friend. I could visualize him rolling across the crosswalk when the light turned, and seconds later having the truck nail him at 50 miles an hour, knocking him flying 20 meters into the air. My first feeling is that of shock that turns immediately to anger. So I can understand the reactions of the no-alcohol-tolerance guys, and I have more in common with them than I have differences with them.

I find myself being more angry with blatant DUI offenders as idiots and piss-poor drivers than I have with them as drunks. Then again, if I spent ten minutes with them in a bar and heard their silly conversations, I'd probably be a lot more focused on their drunkeness than their driving ability. But I think that in each case, it's the behavior I'm focused on. Certainly, there are many people in my life that can drink - some even pretty heavily - and still be wonderfully charming people. Not everyone that drinks heavily acts alcoholically, and I think this is where my focus lies.

I guess the thing is that - at least for me - I have to always remember that my input isn't required here. I mean, it's an interesting conversation, but I know that my opinions are so volitile, I don't really need to involve myself. It is best for me to throttle my actions completely and take no side except maybe in casual conversation. Maybe the laws with strict blood alcohol levels are right and work best. I'm glad it's not my call.

But my opinion is that the behavior and performance of these guys is what disturbs me, and not their blood alcohol level.

I don't go when the light turns green, I always look both ways for these morons. I always expect that some fool is going to fall asleep and careen straight for me. I have a very low expectation level of every driver I meet on the road, and am pleasantly surprised when they manage to stay in their lane. This is an admittedly paranoid and low-expectation outlook, but it keeps me watchin' for 'em.

Now I'm the one that rambled on enough. It's an issue that always brings up extremely emotional reactions and I fully respect the strong feelings of both sides.