If you're driving around and you've been drinking, chances are you're going to make it home without incident. But out of 20 times, you're probably going to kill someone.

So by your assertion, I'm GOD! Because I'm such an outlier that I never will hurt anyone driving drunk. I never had the 5% rate, or even 1%. In fact, out of several hundred trials, I've never had an incident.

GOD, I TELL YOU!

If you're driving around and you've been drinking, chances are you're going to make it home without incident. But out of 20 times, you're probably going to kill someone.

I've driven drunk about 500 times and never hurt anything but that one car I sunk in a river bed.

h3lx: /agree the cellphone distraction/kids climbing around being just as dangerous as drunk drivers. Nothing about it absolves anyone of any personal responsibility.

/You take a loaded pistol and fire 10-15 rounds into someone's house and not hit anyone, not kill anyone. It won't matter if you're racially motivated, intoxicated , hopped up drugs... you're going to jail. The 'you might have killed someone' will come in to play at some point in your trial.

We outlaw the behaviours that ultimately lead to greater crimes. It makes for good governing. A drunk behind the wheel is equal to, if not worse than a loaded weapon in the hands of an irresponsible person.

Drunk driving should be against the law. We probably need to redefine it, and then make the penalties harsher. But we really need to refine how the cases are handled first. Breathalizers are neither accurate, nor do they actually test your BAC. They guess what your BAC is based on the level of alcohol* on your breath. A blood test should probably be required at this point. There are other civil rights that are currently being ignored as well for drunk drivers. This needs to stop.

But that is somewhat beyond the point. Drinking in a hotel bar while you are staying in that hotel (and in addition you do not have a car at the hotel either) should not be a crime. Especially not the way we seem to be defining drunk right now. I am sorry that you have had family members die to drunk drivers, but that does not make you right.

/Could someone post a link to that original 'die in a fire' article, I am interested.
*It mistakes other things for alcohol as well.

AndyT13 is correct. Drunk driving is a thought crime. You may suggest that it's dangerous, more so than a loaded weapon in the hands of an irresponsible person. Yet walking around with a loaded weapon, even if it's the most irresponsible person you know, is still not a crime (assuming they have a carry permit, analagous to a driver's license).

If I drive into your house, charge me with destruction of property. I run someone down in a crosswalk, charge me with vehicular manslaughter. But don't arrest me because I might do those things, even if you decide it's more likely I'll do it today.

If you want to double or triple the penalty if the accused was drunk, that's fine by me. Hell, make it instant death penalty and harvest the organs for the good of society. The accused should still have committed a crime either against property or person before the state can impose penalties.

h3lx

you must be on drugs cause your shiat is CRAZY.

what are you, the THOUGHT police?

douchebag.

/THANK GOD FOR THE IGNORE FEATURE FOR TF MEMBERS!!!

Creeping constraints on dissent and civil liberties? Meh.
An illegal war that bankrupts us and destroys another nation? Yawn.
They want to slightly infringe on your drinking? FIIIIIGHT!!!

lol.

I go to this bastion of liberalism which is known as the University of Texas at Austin.

I also am an out of state student who has lived in truly liberal areas (New York, for instance).

UT Austin might be more liberal than any place in Texas, but it is *not* this hippie reservation that lilplatinum is making it out to be.

Just have to get my rant on here, even if it is a little late:

TABC is the Texas Baptist Mafia. They don't give a rat's ass about public safety, just how much they can milk out of bars, restaurants, and citizens. They aren't out to protect people from drunks, they are out to generate revenue and appease MADD and Fundamentalist Baptist lobbyists. They are like that backwoods county sherrif who only busts the tourists for speeding to make money for the county, hiding behind billboards and putting lower speed limit signs where no one will see them.

Fark them, and the teetotaling lobbyists and fundies who give them so much power.

can i take my driving test at .15 BAC? And if I pass it, can I have a get out of jail free card if i get pulled over and blow anything under .15?

thank you.

h3lx: a DUI/ DWI should be vehicular manslaughter whether you kill anyone or not. Lose your license forever. No exceptions.

Similarly, every gun owner should be arrested for murder.

Come to think of it, plenty of completely sober people have killed others in auto accidents, so anyone driving a vehicle should be arrested, regardless of whether they've been drinking.

Sex leads to STD's, and some STD's can kill, so anyone who has sex should be arrested.

DWI laws aren't about safety, they are about money. The legal drinking limit has been lowered to the point where many people that drink essentially ignores it. Two or three beers gets you the same punishment as the guy that drank a 12 pack and a few shots. Many people drink and drive on a regular basis without ever having an accident, but idiots like you want to call them murderers, instead of judging them on what actually happened.

Auto accidents (regardless of drinking) are the #1 form of accidental death in the US. And all accidental deaths in the US total out to around 4% of the deaths in a year. Drunk driving simply isn't the threat it's made out to be.

h3lx: But out of 20 times, you're probably going to kill someone.

If that were true, then the population of the US would drop by over 50% every year, assuming that nobody died of anything *but* drunk driving accidents. I've driven legally drunk far too many times to count. I've never been in an accident after drinking. I'd say that "Out of 10,000 times, you're probably going to kill someone" is more likely. Seriously, here in Dallas (where we both live), on any given night, there are probably at least 500,000 people drinking and driving. According to you, that means 25,000 people should be dying due to drunk driving in the Dallas area *every night*. I'm pretty sure that would show up in the news if it were true.

I think it's time to admit that you want prohibition and that facts don't matter to you.

MADD is full of idiots like you. Candy Lightner, founder of MADD, disagree's with MADD. At one point, MADD was actively campaigning against designated drivers. That's because their goal is prohibition.

JackofHarts: If one has two "glasses" of wine and are drunk, one was not being truthful about the amount of alcohol one consumed.

I got a DWI after two beers, riding my motorcycle home, over 20 years ago, when .10 was the legal limit. I had two beers, I blew a .10. I was not drunk, I was not doing anything wrong. I left a biker bar where they were having a party after an ABATE meeting, and the cops were just waiting to pull over the first guy to leave. They gave me tickets for not signalling a turn (I'd only made one turn, and I signalled), not having proof of insurance (I had insurance, and I showed them my paperwork) and excessive acceleration. The excessive acceleration was their excuse to pull me over, even though I didn't speed, spin my tires, do a wheelie, or anything else. It was a 30 mph zone - a harley will get to over 30 very quickly, but they couldn't bust me for speeding because I didn't go over 30. By claiming excessive acceleration, they don't have to prove anything - it's just their word against yours.

The bar I was at had a free keg of beer. If I'd stayed and drank more, instead of being the first to leave, I wouldn't have been arrested. They didn't even let me make a phone call until the next day at almost noon.

Since then, the fines have gone up, and the limit has moved from .10 to .08, so I'm sure that on two beers, you can be legally drunk.

I don't support drunk driving. But our DWI laws have very little to do with drunk driving, and a lot to do with generating money by harrassing people who are doing no harm.

Change the law so that unless you are really plastered, driving is legal, and that if you have been drinking and cause a wreck you get very harsh punishments, and you'll have me on your side. Pretending that everyone who drinks 2 or 3 beers is drunk and can't control themselves and is no different from a murderer, and I know that you are just an idiot.

JuggleGeek

i stand by my previous post.

it's all revenuin'....

eff a bunch of nanny staters.