In The News Today...

Quote: AZDuffman

Pro driver but driving serious stuff. i guess off duty is about professionalism.

Well you certainly couldn't tell by looking at me. I didn't want to get the cdl, we were forced to around '92. Until then everybody drove everything.

Funny, the RUS fought for an exemption for us to work more than 11 hours per day, otherwise they couldn't work us round the clock during storms. The licensing for us has little to do with safety, but it does give "the man" more control.

Many DUIs are arbitrary and capricious and I'm not sure they keep our roads any safer than these traffic speed signs that let cops write 'speeding' tickets even though its a perfectly safe speed.
Many road blocks are used simply to interrogate and cite for other things about the llicense.

Food and alcohol interact, metabolism varies, some drinks are served rather stiff, some are not. At happy hour there can be a 'doubles' offer in which they give two shots in one glass but the patron still things he has had only one drink.

In younger crowds, the girls drink is always served strong, in older crowds the bartender often just makes straight pours.

Quote: Fleastiff

Many DUIs are arbitrary and capricious and I'm not sure they keep our roads any safer than these traffic speed signs that let cops write 'speeding' tickets even though its a perfectly safe speed.
Many road blocks are used simply to interrogate and cite for other things about the llicense.

We have a huge, huge DUI industry in the USA. Death are not lowered so much as because you catch the drunk before they kill someone, but because people don't want the risk. IMHO we need to split it to "simple" and "aggravated." Stop ruining the lives of people who might have had a slight buzz, but keep on the ones who are way over. And those roadblocks need to end! They are the perfect example of a society asking and begging to lose its freedom.

Quote: AZDuffman

We have a huge, huge DUI industry in the USA. Death are not lowered so much as because you catch the drunk before they kill someone, but because people don't want the risk. IMHO we need to split it to "simple" and "aggravated." Stop ruining the lives of people who might have had a slight buzz, but keep on the ones who are way over. And those roadblocks need to end! They are the perfect example of a society asking and begging to lose its freedom.

Want to stop dui
2nd offence lose your license
The uber business would explode

What would the drug counselors, lawyers, rehab specialists, cops, judges, etc. want with Uber making all that money while they lose the cash cow?

Quote: Fleastiff

What would the drug counselors, lawyers, rehab specialists, cops, judges, etc. want with Uber making all that money while they lose the cash cow?

Saves lives

Quote: terapined

Want to stop dui
2nd offence lose your license
The uber business would explode

In British Columbia you lose your license after 1 DUI for a year. 3 convictions likely gets you jail time. Tough laws brought stats down some but didn't eliminate DUI's. What they did do is kill the bar business. At least half of all bars have gone broke since the regs were tightened.

Thanks to MADD the drinking and driving problem is terribly overstated. About 1/3 of traffic accidents are blamed on alcohol. This percentage will be high because it includes anyone that has been drinking whether or not they were drunk or the booze caused the accident. Even using the 1/3 figure this is about 10K deaths a year in the US. That is about 0.4% of all deaths, less than the number of suicides. We could spend the our resources much more efficiently on other causes of death.

Quote: kenarman

Thanks to MADD .

In the 1959 movie N BY NW, Cary Grant
gets caught drunk driving. He tries to
fight it and his mother says 'Just pay the
$2 fine and lets go."

Quote: kenarman

In British Columbia you lose your license after 1 DUI for a year. 3 convictions likely gets you jail time. Tough laws brought stats down some but didn't eliminate DUI's. What they did do is kill the bar business. At least half of all bars have gone broke since the regs were tightened.

Thanks to MADD the drinking and driving problem is terribly overstated. About 1/3 of traffic accidents are blamed on alcohol. This percentage will be high because it includes anyone that has been drinking whether or not they were drunk or the booze caused the accident. Even using the 1/3 figure this is about 10K deaths a year in the US. That is about 0.4% of all deaths, less than the number of suicides. We could spend the our resources much more efficiently on other causes of death.

The problem with drunk driving is, it is "impaired" driving. There was a recent study and IIANM, 4 out of 5 seniors were in some way impaired. It is said now that medications as simple as blood pressure meds, or allergy meds or other, impair cognitive function to the degree that many of these drivers should not be driving.

I know several drivers in their 80's +, who skip right along behind the wheel. My 92 year old neighbor lady always goes at least 5 mph over the limit, admittedly so. She scares the hell out of me, and wants me to ride with her. I hate riding with lousy drivers of any age, but there is truth to the impaired driving study's.

Maybe we need something like a "flag" app, where drivers could be flagged for poor driving and after 3 or so flags, the mounties could go have a talk with them and possibly demand a retest?

Drunk driving is no joke, people get killed and worse. And I have been guilty several times, of being over the limit. But I also started out at a lot higher functioning rate in driving skill. Some people should never be allowed on the road. Ever been to Utah? Should take half at least, of the driver licenses away from that state. In AK, there is instant 3 days on dui, and in Anchorage they confiscate your car, permanently. I believe second offense is automatic 30 days and the third is automatic one year. They are rabid about their revenue crimes.

AFAIK, Alaska is ground zero for lousy drivers. No driver training is required. But most of the youngsters can drive the heck out of snow machines and boats. Go figure.

My kid works for the troopers and says that one guy was ticketed for dui on his riding lawnmower, while mowing his own lawn. Not much common sense is used by the police anymore when there is money to be made to support the troopers.

Quote: kenarman

In British Columbia you lose your license after 1 DUI for a year. 3 convictions likely gets you jail time. Tough laws brought stats down some but didn't eliminate DUI's. What they did do is kill the bar business. At least half of all bars have gone broke since the regs were tightened.

Thanks to MADD the drinking and driving problem is terribly overstated. About 1/3 of traffic accidents are blamed on alcohol. This percentage will be high because it includes anyone that has been drinking whether or not they were drunk or the booze caused the accident. Even using the 1/3 figure this is about 10K deaths a year in the US. That is about 0.4% of all deaths, less than the number of suicides. We could spend the our resources much more efficiently on other causes of death.

MADD is an anti-temperance movement now, and the founder left due it's rabid anti-alcohol stance. It's anti-drink driving stance I'm all for, though. If you want to handle a large mass of metal capable of moving at speed, be capable of doing so. And other impaired drivers can go on that list too. High, texting on phones, eating sandwiches with both hands while whizzing by pedestrian crossings... pox on the lot of them.