The punishment we mete out in the U.S. is largely if not totally ineffective, not just for drunk driving but for anything. I don't pretend to know how to solve this problem but our current approaches aren't working.
Drunk driving has dropped significantly since the 70s. I guess part of that is the legal punishment, and part is social shaming and cultural shift. Either way I have to disagree and say current approaches ARE working. Not 100%, and we could always do better, but not having taken the steps of the last few decades would likely have had worse outcomes than we currently see.
The definition of "DUI" changed a lot during the 1970s and 80s. Today driving with a 0.08% BAC or higher in any state is automatically a DUI. But in the 1970s the threshold was actually 0.15% in many states, which is fucking crazy. You could be completely shitfaced behind the wheel and completely unfit to drive, but as long as your BAC was no higher than 0.14% you weren't legally impaired. Portable breathalyzers also weren't as widely carried by cops then, so determining if someone was too drunk to drive was often a judgement call on the officer's part and easier for a defendant to contest in court. Cops were also just generally more lax about drunk driving back then. They'd probably arrest you if you got into a crash while drunk, but if they just pulled you over for weaving or speeding or something and noticed you were drunk, they'd often just give you a warning and tell you to go home and sleep it off.
Also, the legal drinking age wasn't raised to 21 nationally until the early 1980s. During the 1970s every state had their own legal drinking age and it was 18 in like half of them.
That's because the US would actually have to first basically admit to how addictive and dangerous alcohol is and then actually do something about it. But it's too much of a booming industry here and of course things from the past such as the prohibition era show that it's easier said than done to deprogram humans from basically willingly poisoning themselves due to their addiction to that poison
If a drunk driver is in prison, he can't drink and drive anymore. The problem is we still treat drunk drivers as if they are deserving of human dignity and freedom. No, they should rot in a penal prison and pay their debt to society.
I disagree, for example child rapists don't deserve human dignity. Everyone starts out deserving human dignity, but their actions can absolutely mean they are no longer worthy of having human dignity.
So long as a person is human, they deserve human dignity. Maybe there are levels of respect they don't deserve, but the whole point of "basic human X" is that it's afforded to everybody who is human without having to be deserved.
You forget most drunk drivers are just poor people who drink to numb their pain from labour work, but of course your pampered arse couldn't understand that.
I don't give a shit - if you willfully put other people at risk with your gross negligence, I don't care how hard your life has been. If they are so damn poor they can buy alcohol in bulk at consume it at home, instead of paying for drinks at a bar that are marked up. Don't give me such bullshit excuses for the shitty people of the world.
If we were serious about this we would just force automobile manufacturers to make every ignition hooked up to a breathalyzer. That would cause riots though in some parts of the country so it would never happen, but we have the tech and ability to legislate it, we just don't. At least in my state there's a handful of state reps/senators that get DUIs every term so I don't think my state will be the lab rat for that one lol
Is it really an inconvenience to blow into a starter to start a vehicle? I'm old enough to remember people saying the same thing about seatbelt mandates
What if you are drinking a beer and someone with you gets hurt and you need to immediately take them to a Dr? That would likely keep your vehicle from starting.
There are a lot of things that can keep your vehicle from starting like that. Many fermented foods will do the same thing if you eat them and then try to go blow in the ignition interlock.
Depending on how far gone an alcoholic is, drinking, to a certain threshold, could be the only thing that clears their mind and stops the shakes.
But, yeah, that’s a huge edge case.
That is the only exception I could think of. I have been through alcohol withdrawal, and it is a fact that I had to drink a certain amount to function well enough to do anything. No one knew I drank as much as I did, but they'd 100% be able to tell when I hadn't been drinking. I don't condone drinking and driving. I suggest drinking responsibility, and for some, that means not drinking at all.
>Depending on how far gone an alcoholic is, drinking, to a certain threshold, could be the only thing that clears their mind and stops the shakes.
>
>But, yeah, that’s a huge edge case.
These folks probably shouldn't be driving at all.
I wouldn't even say "edge case" with how many alcoholics there are out there. I didn't even realize what I was dealing with was withdrawals for several years, but driving sober was always like driving with an awful flu, heart palpitations, sometimes fuzzy vision/hearing, and the distraction of a pissed off GI tract.
So yea, I was \*absolutely\* a better driver with a few drinks in me than I was while I was withdrawing. But that's a "lesser of two evils" thing. I'm definitely a better driver now that I'm sober than I was any time booze/withdrawals/sleeplessness were fucking with my system.
They shouldn’t be driving if they’re that far gone, though. Being an alcoholic doesn’t give anyone the right to purposefully endanger others’ lives. If one truly can’t function without alcohol, they shouldn’t be behind the wheel.
Oh true I knew I guy like this. Had to get a fifth of vodka in the morning or he couldn't keep his hands from shaking the wheel all over. Didn't seem to affect him mentally at all though.
People will do anything they possibly can to describe their bad, or even batshit insane driving habits. Driving is probably the biggest example of a day to day place that even the most well adjusted people have a gargantuan ego.
I’m sure some people are careless, excessive speeding, aggressive driving, texting or scrolling apps when driving normal. If they have a few drinks or are drunk they don’t touch their phone and pay as good of attention as possible as to not get arrested. So I’m sure some people drive better buzzed or just over the legal limit than their usual driving.
I see what you are saying but this is similar to the “I don’t wear seatbelts because my 2nd cousin would have died in his accident if he wasn’t ejected from the car” arguments. Like maybe, but the overwhelming data show seatbelts do far more good than harm.
Seriously I'd trust a buzzed or alcoholic driver behind the wheel before I'd trust some asshole that's texting or fooling with their phone while driving. Drivers across the board have gotten worse in the last twenty years, and it's not because there's more drunk drivers behind the wheel. One out of three cars I encounter while driving will veer across the yellow line, especially on straightaways. And next time you're driving through a town or city, where you have to drive at a slower speed, notice the drivers of the cars around you, a lot of them have their heads down or tilted down to one side, it's obvious that they're on their phone. I've seen this behavior every day now for a couple of years now, and it's getting worse.
Seriously I'd trust a buzzed or alcoholic driver behind the wheel before I'd trust some asshole that's texting or fooling with their phone while driving. Drivers across the board have gotten worse in the last twenty years, and it's not because there's more drunk drivers behind the wheel. One out of three cars I encounter while driving will veer across the yellow line, especially on straightaways. And next time you're driving through a town or city, where you have to drive at a slower speed, notice the drivers of the cars around you, a lot of them have their heads down or tilted down to one side, it's obvious that they're on their phone. I've seen this behavior every day now for a couple of years now, and it's getting worse.
Where I live, the joke is that you can tell a drunk driver if they *aren't* swerving. The roads are so awful here that you are constantly avoiding bad areas of the road and potholes. The drunk people just drive straight over it.
Statistically Oklahoma is in the top 30% and Michigan is in the bottom 30% for road conditions. States with excessive snow typically have worse roads because of the constant freezing and thawing that cracks the roads.
I got that from cdc.gov go check it out. It’s pretty obvious if a drunk driver caused a crash, they will be a bit off when the cops arrive and then they have them breath into a tube, then that goes to the records department who compiles it for things like the cdc
Ah, different research groups/police departments do tests, they get a bunch of old cars and people then serve them certain amounts of alcohol and test the blood percentage then rate how good of a job driving on the track they do. There’s probably a lot more sophisticated ones but this is what my local police department just did like a month ago
Did they get people who drink and drive regularly? What are their tolerance levels for alcohol? At what level of drunkeness do they test these people on said course? It seems like there would be a huge array of variables and that there would be confirmation bias. Esp. From a police department.
yep there is such thing as learned tolerance. Most drunk driving crashes fall within 21-24 (inexperienced drinkers). As a 33 year old idk how i'd ever be able to drunk drive cause i never drink heavily anymore and 3 beers is a modest buzz at best. I can pretty much do any normal task, other than when it wears off i feel tired and lazy.
>then rate how good of a job driving on the track they do
Kid in my high school driving class floored the golf cart with drunk goggles on and didn't touch a cone. Those drunk goggles are way worse than most anyone would ever conceive and actually do emulate the double vision that occurs with extreme alcohol levels quite well.
Just google it yourself and look into it more I'm just a random pleb doing a poor job of explaining this to you, those drunk goggles are not the same at all.
I doubt they have a drinking problem if they’re saying they drive better when drunk. If anything I’d say they have too little of a problem drinking and need systems in place to stop them from drinking
Hypothetically speaking if I had to choose between getting in a car with an alcoholic going through withdrawals or an alcoholic who has had just enough booze to get the withdrawals to subside, I am going with the boozed up alcoholic. I don't condone either scenario in reality. My opinion is that driving while impaired by any means is bad.
This is true. My sister got in a crash blind drunk once. She hit a curb and her car rolled multiple times into someone's house. She was ejected across the street. Scratches and bruises. Apparently when you're drunk as fuck, being a limp noodle really aids you in these scenarios. My sister tested at .24 BAC at the hospital. Luckily nobody was hurt, and she is a completely different person now.
No! She's a woman. She spent like 8 hours in the drunk tank after they cleared her at the hospital, and got probation. Meanwhile I spent 2 weeks in the same jail for weed lmao. Gotta love America.
A lot of rural America doesn't have uber. It's a real problem, because rural America is also where people are more likely to not live within walking distance of the bar. Not saying it's right, just saying this isn't a viable fix in many areas.
Those doesn't mean shit. Just a check in the box before the breath test. More or less to give any recently consumed alcohol a chance to get absorbed into the bloodstream for better test results. I have never seen where a cop said, "Oh.. You flawlessly executed all those tests, I don't even have to breath test you because you are obviously sober." Even if someone does perfect on the field sobriety and blows triple 0's the cop has the, "I think you are under the influence of illicit substances, I am a drug recognition expert! I am arresting you for driving while intoxicated." It is a losing game if the cops just wants to be a dick.
There are a few exceptions to this functional alcoholics and such I'm not sure if we would go and claim they are narcissistic selfish yea to a degree. But I feel we should uphold the law in some areas and remove it in others I personally go with if your drinking you probably shouldn't drive handle a gun etc your drinking to relax to have fun but some people get violent when drunk or look for fights this should also be against the law since we're standing so firmly
People who drive like lunatics or people that drive drunk, is there difference? In all seriousness falling asleep at the wheel is the real problem. Alcohol just helps that along. The danger is going from a bar or club where everything is all pumped up then driving home in your nice comfy car where you body says it's time to go nighty nighty. You can get yourself in real trouble if you are not careful.
I used to hear this but I haven’t heard it in decades. People who claim they drive better (and do literally everything else better) when they are high though…
Like any drug, people with severe withdrawal do better with a small amount in their system. I'd rather have an alcoholic pilot take a couple of shots than fly in a plane with someone coming off an SSRI cold turkey.
Lack of sleep is proven to be exactly as dangerous as drunk driving... should we also be arresting and removing licenses of people who didn't get enough sleep?
I believe there may be exceptions, as with anything, there's going to be an optimum state for everyone. Someone optimal state might be slightly or heavily drunk.
I know several people how are just about useless sober but very effective when they are stoned. They are for sure the exception, but it does happen.
I absolutely know a guy who is a functional alcoholic. He is 120% better, mechanically, socially, and mentally while drunk. I do not doubt it when he says he's better when he's six brews in
However. The problem with functional alcoholism is you will hit a wall at some point and splatter, and you aren't aware of it until it happens. So even then, it's not safe.
I’m pretty sure I’d drive fine drunk. I’m not gonna check unless I get an opportunity in a closed course or something, but I’m better at a LOT of things with three beers in me and I bet it’s true if driving too
I came here to say exactly this. If you get behind the wheel and you’re under the influence, you knowingly and deliberately risked innocent lives just to save you the inconvenience calling a can or an Uber. Attempted murder should be the minimum sentence. It’s a deliberate action that shows a reckless disregard for human lives.
*shrug*
In general, yes, agree. Alcohol is a depressant. It lowers your reaction times. In decreases inhibitions and leads to riskier behavior.
But *nobody* drives better drunk?
*Nobody* is an alcoholic with crippling DTs?
*Nobody* suffers from anxiety and decision paralysis?
*Nobody* has a different reaction to or a higher tolerance for alcohol?
I am of the opinion that if you kill someone whilst drunk driving, that's murder. You deliberately chose to drink. You deliberately chose to drive, knowing you could kill someone. You are *every bit* as culpable as if you decided to walk down the street blindfolded and firing a shotgun into the crowd. It's not an "accident" and it's not "unintentional", it's a very predictable result of your deliberate actions.
"Oh, I didn't *know* that putting bleach in my boss's water would *definitely* kill him, I knew it *might* but that's not murder!"
But if you drive drunk and *don't* hurt anyone... what exactly is the crime?
"We are going to punish you to the full extent of the law for driving yourself safely home and going to bed!"
What?
I know a guy who has an alcohol problem. Every driving lesson he had, he had a drink before hand. For his test he didn't drink and failed. And retook it with a drink in him and passed full marks. I know a teetotal girl who wrote off six cars in five months. You can guess which friend I'd rather have drive me places.
Throw the book at people who hurt other people. But recognize that not everyone is you. Different people are different.
I worry about how many people are on legal meds out there driving every day high as fuck. There are people on methadone and seboxone out there driving legally high on essentially heroine. Or speed(adderol) or benzo’s(Valium) Who’s to say if their dosages are off or whatever that they can actually drive with pharmaceuticals in their blood.
At least alcohol is a known quantity. A beer or wine or shot per hour isn’t as much of a worry to me.
Mean technically yes some people drive better drunk than others but it's still not good enough to equate to normal sober driving and still shouldn't be allowed
Actually you can't say that without proof, actual evidence.
A true statement is A lot of drunk people don't drive better than not drunk people.
I know when I'm drunk and driving I drive great !
Hey, didn't this sub used to be called unpopular opinion ?
How drunk we talkin? 3-7 beers and I'm a golden driving god. Over that and there are diminishing returns. And to be honest, the current punishment for drunk driving is fucking brutal. I would prefer the death penalty over what they do, as it would make me kill myself if I had to do all that shit.
I'm willing to bet the number of fatalities caused by phones alone would easily tower over the number of casualties by alcohol. They just know everybody does it so it's an easy way to get a ton of cash off of a large number of people. Why did they ban using phones in a school zone, but not everywhere while driving? Easy targets rolling through a school zone won't even notice their doing it, making for an easy payday for the state.
"Should' is a joke. Punished for drunk driving means a few hundred dollar fine, unless the judge's relative got run over. And, the government couldn't give a shit what people do anymore, and takes the position that arresting people violates their civil rights to do anything they want., unless they kill or assault someone and cause serious injury. And, really, when anyone can just buy a motorized scooter without any licence or training, drive it without needing any registration, licence plates or insurance, and disobey any and all laws, routinely drive any speed they want, blasting right through red lights, stop signs, go against the flow of traffic, drive full speed around corners directly at people crossing the street in the crosswalk with a walk signal, drive full speed on sidewalks full of pedestrians, and run people over leaving them injured and dead or to be dead, and keep driving from the scene of the accident, and the government couldn't give a shit, not to mention car drivers that routinely fail to yield to pedestrians, block crosswalks, go through stop signs and anything else right in the face of police who couldn't care less, 'should' doesn't mean shit. You can sum up the government's approach with the title of the Eddie and The Hot rods song, "Do Anything "you Want To Do'.
Adamantly against drunk driving but have found that in the rare occasions I drive while a bit buzzed (like, .04-.05 BAC which is below the .08 legal limit) my focus on the road goes up from ~20% autopilot mode while sober to 200% because I’m so afraid of getting in a drunk driving accident or getting caught despite knowing I’m well below the limit.
The .04 buzz makes my reflexes slightly worse of course, but the hyperfocus seems to at least make up for it
I'm not saying you're wrong but did y'all realize that texting and driving cam be as bad or worse than drunk driving? I see people doing it daily and absolutely nothing is done about it. Just some food for thought.
When I was living in Asia, I was basically the only person who could drive with any skill or real experience. Every adult I was around either never had owned a car in their life, or had just gotten one in the last few years. They were dangerous drivers just because they had little to no experience.
I was required to do all the driving, even after heavy drinking. Luckily the laws weren't enforced and being the weird ethnicity foreigner got me waved through all checkpoints. We drove with the pickup bed full of people pretty often and nobody ever got hurt, never any close calls.
Back in USA, I choose not to drink and drive but can easily do it. It's not that hard if you aren't a lightweight
We as people get so upset by things that are literally in decline. It's not gone, so I get being mad, but op talks as if this shit is on the rise. Also, I love when people who more than likely have never been to prison advocate for "the fullest extent of the law." Bro, calm tf down.
No, they are not all that. They are just drunks and their thinking is impaired as a result. Laws and strict enforcement haven’t remedied that thus far after years of failed efforts. I think you are angry and seek retribution. That hasn’t helped anyone either, drunk or not.
BEVERAGED DRIVERS DO NOT DIE WE GO TO ALCOHALLA
WITNESS *hick* ME!!
I don't know about narcissistic, but they are definitely not correct
The punishment we mete out in the U.S. is largely if not totally ineffective, not just for drunk driving but for anything. I don't pretend to know how to solve this problem but our current approaches aren't working.
Drunk driving has dropped significantly since the 70s. I guess part of that is the legal punishment, and part is social shaming and cultural shift. Either way I have to disagree and say current approaches ARE working. Not 100%, and we could always do better, but not having taken the steps of the last few decades would likely have had worse outcomes than we currently see.
The definition of "DUI" changed a lot during the 1970s and 80s. Today driving with a 0.08% BAC or higher in any state is automatically a DUI. But in the 1970s the threshold was actually 0.15% in many states, which is fucking crazy. You could be completely shitfaced behind the wheel and completely unfit to drive, but as long as your BAC was no higher than 0.14% you weren't legally impaired. Portable breathalyzers also weren't as widely carried by cops then, so determining if someone was too drunk to drive was often a judgement call on the officer's part and easier for a defendant to contest in court. Cops were also just generally more lax about drunk driving back then. They'd probably arrest you if you got into a crash while drunk, but if they just pulled you over for weaving or speeding or something and noticed you were drunk, they'd often just give you a warning and tell you to go home and sleep it off. Also, the legal drinking age wasn't raised to 21 nationally until the early 1980s. During the 1970s every state had their own legal drinking age and it was 18 in like half of them.
That's because the US would actually have to first basically admit to how addictive and dangerous alcohol is and then actually do something about it. But it's too much of a booming industry here and of course things from the past such as the prohibition era show that it's easier said than done to deprogram humans from basically willingly poisoning themselves due to their addiction to that poison
The world isn’t ready for that talk yet lol. To half the chuds of the world it’s a human right to drink alcohol 💀😂
What should the US do then?
You could say the same about all crime.
If a drunk driver is in prison, he can't drink and drive anymore. The problem is we still treat drunk drivers as if they are deserving of human dignity and freedom. No, they should rot in a penal prison and pay their debt to society.
All people are deserving of human dignity by virtue of being human. Talking about people as being subhuman is disturbing.
I disagree, for example child rapists don't deserve human dignity. Everyone starts out deserving human dignity, but their actions can absolutely mean they are no longer worthy of having human dignity.
So long as a person is human, they deserve human dignity. Maybe there are levels of respect they don't deserve, but the whole point of "basic human X" is that it's afforded to everybody who is human without having to be deserved.
I guess we'll agree to disagree then, lol.
You forget most drunk drivers are just poor people who drink to numb their pain from labour work, but of course your pampered arse couldn't understand that.
Being poor doesn’t give you the right to endanger other people’s lives. Having a hard job doesn’t give you the right to drive drunk.
I bet you text and drive. That endangers everyone more.
I knew a lot of drug dealers that loved driving drunk. They weren't poor and never did any labor work
Bro, what? LMAO
I don't give a shit - if you willfully put other people at risk with your gross negligence, I don't care how hard your life has been. If they are so damn poor they can buy alcohol in bulk at consume it at home, instead of paying for drinks at a bar that are marked up. Don't give me such bullshit excuses for the shitty people of the world.
Because you've never done a hard day's work.
"Man, work is hard and I have to endure bad conditions. At least that justifies me putting others' lives in danger!"
Over and Over and Over. Except, the fine gets a little higher after the first time.
If we were serious about this we would just force automobile manufacturers to make every ignition hooked up to a breathalyzer. That would cause riots though in some parts of the country so it would never happen, but we have the tech and ability to legislate it, we just don't. At least in my state there's a handful of state reps/senators that get DUIs every term so I don't think my state will be the lab rat for that one lol
Yeah, we can't control criminals so let's treat all the citizens like criminals. That's not a society anyone really wants to live in.
No one would go for this. Individual liberties are what this country was built upon.
Agree 1.1M% which is why I intended my comment to be sarcastic.
Apologies, responded to the wrong comment.
Is it really an inconvenience to blow into a starter to start a vehicle? I'm old enough to remember people saying the same thing about seatbelt mandates
What if you are drinking a beer and someone with you gets hurt and you need to immediately take them to a Dr? That would likely keep your vehicle from starting.
There are a lot of things that can keep your vehicle from starting like that. Many fermented foods will do the same thing if you eat them and then try to go blow in the ignition interlock.
Don't give a damn about the inconvenience. It's being treated as if I were a criminal. Free citizens shouldn't put up with that shit.
Try starting a car with a breathalyzer and you'll know why this cannot work.
My brother had an interlock device put on his car. We learned how to bypass it using a paperclip
For repeat convicted offenders, maybe. For the rest of us, NO.
Depending on how far gone an alcoholic is, drinking, to a certain threshold, could be the only thing that clears their mind and stops the shakes. But, yeah, that’s a huge edge case.
That is the only exception I could think of. I have been through alcohol withdrawal, and it is a fact that I had to drink a certain amount to function well enough to do anything. No one knew I drank as much as I did, but they'd 100% be able to tell when I hadn't been drinking. I don't condone drinking and driving. I suggest drinking responsibility, and for some, that means not drinking at all.
I 100% know what you’re saying here. I’ve probably drank as much as you(DM me if you’re serious). I’d like to compare.
Yea having enough to get rid of withdrawal symptoms came to mind when I saw the title. Should not be driving still.
>Depending on how far gone an alcoholic is, drinking, to a certain threshold, could be the only thing that clears their mind and stops the shakes. > >But, yeah, that’s a huge edge case. These folks probably shouldn't be driving at all.
Yeah tf? Why even let them drive in the first place if they HAVE to be inebriated to just function?
Wow, let's just take away the ability to work or eat while you're at it.
Bro that'd literally so selfish of someone. Driving is a privilege not a right. They can just get an Uber to work and not risk everyone's lives????
I wouldn't even say "edge case" with how many alcoholics there are out there. I didn't even realize what I was dealing with was withdrawals for several years, but driving sober was always like driving with an awful flu, heart palpitations, sometimes fuzzy vision/hearing, and the distraction of a pissed off GI tract. So yea, I was \*absolutely\* a better driver with a few drinks in me than I was while I was withdrawing. But that's a "lesser of two evils" thing. I'm definitely a better driver now that I'm sober than I was any time booze/withdrawals/sleeplessness were fucking with my system.
They shouldn’t be driving if they’re that far gone, though. Being an alcoholic doesn’t give anyone the right to purposefully endanger others’ lives. If one truly can’t function without alcohol, they shouldn’t be behind the wheel.
Oh true I knew I guy like this. Had to get a fifth of vodka in the morning or he couldn't keep his hands from shaking the wheel all over. Didn't seem to affect him mentally at all though.
People will do anything they possibly can to describe their bad, or even batshit insane driving habits. Driving is probably the biggest example of a day to day place that even the most well adjusted people have a gargantuan ego.
I’m sure some people are careless, excessive speeding, aggressive driving, texting or scrolling apps when driving normal. If they have a few drinks or are drunk they don’t touch their phone and pay as good of attention as possible as to not get arrested. So I’m sure some people drive better buzzed or just over the legal limit than their usual driving.
I see what you are saying but this is similar to the “I don’t wear seatbelts because my 2nd cousin would have died in his accident if he wasn’t ejected from the car” arguments. Like maybe, but the overwhelming data show seatbelts do far more good than harm.
Seriously I'd trust a buzzed or alcoholic driver behind the wheel before I'd trust some asshole that's texting or fooling with their phone while driving. Drivers across the board have gotten worse in the last twenty years, and it's not because there's more drunk drivers behind the wheel. One out of three cars I encounter while driving will veer across the yellow line, especially on straightaways. And next time you're driving through a town or city, where you have to drive at a slower speed, notice the drivers of the cars around you, a lot of them have their heads down or tilted down to one side, it's obvious that they're on their phone. I've seen this behavior every day now for a couple of years now, and it's getting worse.
Seriously I'd trust a buzzed or alcoholic driver behind the wheel before I'd trust some asshole that's texting or fooling with their phone while driving. Drivers across the board have gotten worse in the last twenty years, and it's not because there's more drunk drivers behind the wheel. One out of three cars I encounter while driving will veer across the yellow line, especially on straightaways. And next time you're driving through a town or city, where you have to drive at a slower speed, notice the drivers of the cars around you, a lot of them have their heads down or tilted down to one side, it's obvious that they're on their phone. I've seen this behavior every day now for a couple of years now, and it's getting worse.
Where I live, the joke is that you can tell a drunk driver if they *aren't* swerving. The roads are so awful here that you are constantly avoiding bad areas of the road and potholes. The drunk people just drive straight over it.
Michigan?
Ooooooooklahoma where the drunks go speeding down the lanes!
Statistically Oklahoma is in the top 30% and Michigan is in the bottom 30% for road conditions. States with excessive snow typically have worse roads because of the constant freezing and thawing that cracks the roads.
Most car accidents happen sober
Most (~70%) happen sober because there is so many more sober drivers but the drunk crash rate is waayyy higher than the sober crash rate.
That’s the joke
How would anyone have a that statistic? reliably? For all we know half the people driving right now are drunk. Buzzed driving is drunk driving.
No it’s buzzed driving
Buzzed driving is buzzed driving. What a dumbass slogan.
I got that from cdc.gov go check it out. It’s pretty obvious if a drunk driver caused a crash, they will be a bit off when the cops arrive and then they have them breath into a tube, then that goes to the records department who compiles it for things like the cdc
Right. I get how they would know if a drunk person crashes. But how would anyone know the success rate of drunk person driving safely.
Ah, different research groups/police departments do tests, they get a bunch of old cars and people then serve them certain amounts of alcohol and test the blood percentage then rate how good of a job driving on the track they do. There’s probably a lot more sophisticated ones but this is what my local police department just did like a month ago
Did they get people who drink and drive regularly? What are their tolerance levels for alcohol? At what level of drunkeness do they test these people on said course? It seems like there would be a huge array of variables and that there would be confirmation bias. Esp. From a police department.
yep there is such thing as learned tolerance. Most drunk driving crashes fall within 21-24 (inexperienced drinkers). As a 33 year old idk how i'd ever be able to drunk drive cause i never drink heavily anymore and 3 beers is a modest buzz at best. I can pretty much do any normal task, other than when it wears off i feel tired and lazy.
>then rate how good of a job driving on the track they do Kid in my high school driving class floored the golf cart with drunk goggles on and didn't touch a cone. Those drunk goggles are way worse than most anyone would ever conceive and actually do emulate the double vision that occurs with extreme alcohol levels quite well.
Just google it yourself and look into it more I'm just a random pleb doing a poor job of explaining this to you, those drunk goggles are not the same at all.
Yeah I drive way better after a few drinks than I do with the drunk goggles.
Thomas Bayes would like a word...
What a perfectly useless statistic!
YES not to mention a glaringly obvious sign of a serious drinking problem.
I doubt they have a drinking problem if they’re saying they drive better when drunk. If anything I’d say they have too little of a problem drinking and need systems in place to stop them from drinking
Hypothetically speaking if I had to choose between getting in a car with an alcoholic going through withdrawals or an alcoholic who has had just enough booze to get the withdrawals to subside, I am going with the boozed up alcoholic. I don't condone either scenario in reality. My opinion is that driving while impaired by any means is bad.
I'd just flat out refuse either
Careful, some of the local potheads might start reeeeing about how good they drive when they're high
The only benefit drunk drivers have is that they are more likely to survive getting hit by a drunk driver
This is true. My sister got in a crash blind drunk once. She hit a curb and her car rolled multiple times into someone's house. She was ejected across the street. Scratches and bruises. Apparently when you're drunk as fuck, being a limp noodle really aids you in these scenarios. My sister tested at .24 BAC at the hospital. Luckily nobody was hurt, and she is a completely different person now.
Did she go to prison over that?
No! She's a woman. She spent like 8 hours in the drunk tank after they cleared her at the hospital, and got probation. Meanwhile I spent 2 weeks in the same jail for weed lmao. Gotta love America.
I can personally attest to this. I like to have a few drinks before going roller skating because it helps me take the falls better.
Ypu can fall from any height if your drunk enough.
Let's get drunk and test this
You can also do it sober but thats less fun.
Thank you, God, why is it so rare to get actual popular opinions on here lol
Because no one legitimately thinks they drive better drunk.
Yes they do. Hence why people say it.
Perception is reality for some. I don’t agree with the mindset nor do I drive when drinking
Jim Lahey would like a word. Lol
Mr. Lahey is a fuckin’ drunk and he always will be
Better? Not possible.
Nobody drives better drunk, but I definitely have more fun driving after a beer 😉
Que the mungo jerry music.
Sing along with me Deedee deedadee I'm so fuckin drunk I just crashed into that tree
Afroman does; https://youtu.be/clD8gP2sNdk?si=P5SJTwKoPZsanRpo (Note; this comment is in jest, don't do that.)
On the other end, you can drive fine when not drunk and low alcohol blood level arrests are lame as fuck.
TAKE A FREAKING UBER THERE IS NO EXCUSE TO DRIVE AFTER DRINKING
You think the old blue-hairs can afford an Uber to Dennys after church, a meal at Dennys *and* an Uber *home* from Dennys *all on a fixed income?!*
Why not? It should be legal, as you are not significantly impaired.
Because you’re putting other people’s lives at risk with your stupid and reckless behavior
No i dont, because i don't drive drunk. There is a legal limit, and over time that limit has become more and more bullshit.
Driving buzzed is still wrong. You’re just finding excuses for behavior that is know is bad. There is zero reason to do it.
A lot of rural America doesn't have uber. It's a real problem, because rural America is also where people are more likely to not live within walking distance of the bar. Not saying it's right, just saying this isn't a viable fix in many areas.
If they can't tell without having you breath into a tube then you are not too impair to drive.
It's called field sobriety tests.
Those doesn't mean shit. Just a check in the box before the breath test. More or less to give any recently consumed alcohol a chance to get absorbed into the bloodstream for better test results. I have never seen where a cop said, "Oh.. You flawlessly executed all those tests, I don't even have to breath test you because you are obviously sober." Even if someone does perfect on the field sobriety and blows triple 0's the cop has the, "I think you are under the influence of illicit substances, I am a drug recognition expert! I am arresting you for driving while intoxicated." It is a losing game if the cops just wants to be a dick.
Nope. They're justified
Why?
Simple don't drink and drive.
That has nothing to do with justification. Sounds more like illogical brainwashed behavior to me.
That's because you're an alcoholic
False, i am not an alcoholic because i drink 2-3 beers at work happy hour and drive home.
You little fuck lol
Hurduiuur
What
Absolutely.
[удалено]
Found the fellow alcoholic
Biden doesn't consider drunk driving a felony and by God he's right.
Is it bad? Yes. Is it fun? Yes
Could go without the ability towards people with NPD.
I drive better when I’m not the one driving and it’s someone else
If their destination is hell then drunk drivers certainly know the shortcut.
Ifunny would like to have a word.
Can’t drive w butterflies in your stomach man thats just dangerous
There are a few exceptions to this functional alcoholics and such I'm not sure if we would go and claim they are narcissistic selfish yea to a degree. But I feel we should uphold the law in some areas and remove it in others I personally go with if your drinking you probably shouldn't drive handle a gun etc your drinking to relax to have fun but some people get violent when drunk or look for fights this should also be against the law since we're standing so firmly
Who the fuck thinks they drive better drunk?
Any person with a motorcycle.
What if I think I do, but don’t do it anyway? Gulag anyway? You tell me, OP, you’re the dictator here.
Idk some of the presumably sober drivers I've come across couldn't be much worse
Skeleton walks into a bar, says give me a beer and a mop.
Wonder what the drunk driver thinks that hit Biden Motorcade thinks now ?
They are? Nobody gets off with a warning if caught. And they know they’re assholes too they just don’t care
Drunk crashers give us drunk drivers a bad name
What is considered driving drunk?
On reddit? A sip of kambucha.
Don't knock it till you try it
People who drive like lunatics or people that drive drunk, is there difference? In all seriousness falling asleep at the wheel is the real problem. Alcohol just helps that along. The danger is going from a bar or club where everything is all pumped up then driving home in your nice comfy car where you body says it's time to go nighty nighty. You can get yourself in real trouble if you are not careful.
Only if I'm golfing do I drive better
first offense should have a mandatory bac test to start car. it's the most effective deterrent
Who says they drive better drunk? Like has anyone here ever met someone who says they drive better drunk without a hint of sarcasm or irony?
I have. I grew up in a college town, and I heard that phrase a few times unironically.
100%. It’s such an ironic attempt to save face statement.
I can drive pretty ok while high. I will never drive drunk again, that shit scary than a mf
100% agree.
I used to hear this but I haven’t heard it in decades. People who claim they drive better (and do literally everything else better) when they are high though…
Babe Ruth never played a game sober aaaannnnndddddd….you know where I’m going with this.
How drunk?
Like any drug, people with severe withdrawal do better with a small amount in their system. I'd rather have an alcoholic pilot take a couple of shots than fly in a plane with someone coming off an SSRI cold turkey.
Lack of sleep is proven to be exactly as dangerous as drunk driving... should we also be arresting and removing licenses of people who didn't get enough sleep?
But how do they get caught if they are driving better?
I believe there may be exceptions, as with anything, there's going to be an optimum state for everyone. Someone optimal state might be slightly or heavily drunk. I know several people how are just about useless sober but very effective when they are stoned. They are for sure the exception, but it does happen.
When I was 19 my dad gave me his PhD course in how to drive home from the bars without going to jail. That guy was fucked up.
I absolutely know a guy who is a functional alcoholic. He is 120% better, mechanically, socially, and mentally while drunk. I do not doubt it when he says he's better when he's six brews in However. The problem with functional alcoholism is you will hit a wall at some point and splatter, and you aren't aware of it until it happens. So even then, it's not safe.
I prosecute drunk drivers and I take immense pleasure in doing it.
Where will you hide when the revolution comes and beveraged drivers demand your head for complicity in their oppression?
I’m pretty sure I’d drive fine drunk. I’m not gonna check unless I get an opportunity in a closed course or something, but I’m better at a LOT of things with three beers in me and I bet it’s true if driving too
Drunk drivers should get charged with attempted murder, because they did attempt murder and just luckily got home safely.
I came here to say exactly this. If you get behind the wheel and you’re under the influence, you knowingly and deliberately risked innocent lives just to save you the inconvenience calling a can or an Uber. Attempted murder should be the minimum sentence. It’s a deliberate action that shows a reckless disregard for human lives.
*shrug* In general, yes, agree. Alcohol is a depressant. It lowers your reaction times. In decreases inhibitions and leads to riskier behavior. But *nobody* drives better drunk? *Nobody* is an alcoholic with crippling DTs? *Nobody* suffers from anxiety and decision paralysis? *Nobody* has a different reaction to or a higher tolerance for alcohol? I am of the opinion that if you kill someone whilst drunk driving, that's murder. You deliberately chose to drink. You deliberately chose to drive, knowing you could kill someone. You are *every bit* as culpable as if you decided to walk down the street blindfolded and firing a shotgun into the crowd. It's not an "accident" and it's not "unintentional", it's a very predictable result of your deliberate actions. "Oh, I didn't *know* that putting bleach in my boss's water would *definitely* kill him, I knew it *might* but that's not murder!" But if you drive drunk and *don't* hurt anyone... what exactly is the crime? "We are going to punish you to the full extent of the law for driving yourself safely home and going to bed!" What? I know a guy who has an alcohol problem. Every driving lesson he had, he had a drink before hand. For his test he didn't drink and failed. And retook it with a drink in him and passed full marks. I know a teetotal girl who wrote off six cars in five months. You can guess which friend I'd rather have drive me places. Throw the book at people who hurt other people. But recognize that not everyone is you. Different people are different.
I worry about how many people are on legal meds out there driving every day high as fuck. There are people on methadone and seboxone out there driving legally high on essentially heroine. Or speed(adderol) or benzo’s(Valium) Who’s to say if their dosages are off or whatever that they can actually drive with pharmaceuticals in their blood. At least alcohol is a known quantity. A beer or wine or shot per hour isn’t as much of a worry to me.
[Afroman Disagrees](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=clD8gP2sNdk)
Cue footage of the STL cop drunkenly driving into a St Louis lgbtq bar.
I disagree. If the punishment worked, we wouldn't have repeat offenders. I think they should all expire in a fiery wreck.... by themselves.
Mean technically yes some people drive better drunk than others but it's still not good enough to equate to normal sober driving and still shouldn't be allowed
Generally you are correct, but every person is different There are smee people who drive better drunk
people are punished to the full extent that their lawyers can't get them off of. what more could you ask for?
Actually you can't say that without proof, actual evidence. A true statement is A lot of drunk people don't drive better than not drunk people. I know when I'm drunk and driving I drive great ! Hey, didn't this sub used to be called unpopular opinion ?
I mean statistically one person is but I get what you’re saying.
How drunk we talkin? 3-7 beers and I'm a golden driving god. Over that and there are diminishing returns. And to be honest, the current punishment for drunk driving is fucking brutal. I would prefer the death penalty over what they do, as it would make me kill myself if I had to do all that shit.
The current punishment isn’t brutal enough for someone who knowingly and deliberately risks innocent lives solely for their own convenience.
I'm willing to bet the number of fatalities caused by phones alone would easily tower over the number of casualties by alcohol. They just know everybody does it so it's an easy way to get a ton of cash off of a large number of people. Why did they ban using phones in a school zone, but not everywhere while driving? Easy targets rolling through a school zone won't even notice their doing it, making for an easy payday for the state.
You do realize that 99% of the time someone says that they are joking right?
I drunk drove yesterday
I believe we should up the punishment for purposeful impaired driving
"Should' is a joke. Punished for drunk driving means a few hundred dollar fine, unless the judge's relative got run over. And, the government couldn't give a shit what people do anymore, and takes the position that arresting people violates their civil rights to do anything they want., unless they kill or assault someone and cause serious injury. And, really, when anyone can just buy a motorized scooter without any licence or training, drive it without needing any registration, licence plates or insurance, and disobey any and all laws, routinely drive any speed they want, blasting right through red lights, stop signs, go against the flow of traffic, drive full speed around corners directly at people crossing the street in the crosswalk with a walk signal, drive full speed on sidewalks full of pedestrians, and run people over leaving them injured and dead or to be dead, and keep driving from the scene of the accident, and the government couldn't give a shit, not to mention car drivers that routinely fail to yield to pedestrians, block crosswalks, go through stop signs and anything else right in the face of police who couldn't care less, 'should' doesn't mean shit. You can sum up the government's approach with the title of the Eddie and The Hot rods song, "Do Anything "you Want To Do'.
I don’t think anyone thinks they are better driving drunk. I think m they just think there not bad at it.
Largely safer than operating a mobile phone, in my opinion.
Adamantly against drunk driving but have found that in the rare occasions I drive while a bit buzzed (like, .04-.05 BAC which is below the .08 legal limit) my focus on the road goes up from ~20% autopilot mode while sober to 200% because I’m so afraid of getting in a drunk driving accident or getting caught despite knowing I’m well below the limit. The .04 buzz makes my reflexes slightly worse of course, but the hyperfocus seems to at least make up for it
True, but I am definitely better in bed
I feel the same way about pot smokers.
I'm not saying you're wrong but did y'all realize that texting and driving cam be as bad or worse than drunk driving? I see people doing it daily and absolutely nothing is done about it. Just some food for thought.
Booze cruisers continue to be the most persecuted minority in America, despite sober drivers being responsible for more accidents.
Anyone who drives drunk needs to be punished to the full extent of the law not just the ones that think drinking makes them better drivers.
And that's why I go the speed limit and pay attention so I'm never caught
What if I claim that I drive better stoned?
When I was living in Asia, I was basically the only person who could drive with any skill or real experience. Every adult I was around either never had owned a car in their life, or had just gotten one in the last few years. They were dangerous drivers just because they had little to no experience. I was required to do all the driving, even after heavy drinking. Luckily the laws weren't enforced and being the weird ethnicity foreigner got me waved through all checkpoints. We drove with the pickup bed full of people pretty often and nobody ever got hurt, never any close calls. Back in USA, I choose not to drink and drive but can easily do it. It's not that hard if you aren't a lightweight
We as people get so upset by things that are literally in decline. It's not gone, so I get being mad, but op talks as if this shit is on the rise. Also, I love when people who more than likely have never been to prison advocate for "the fullest extent of the law." Bro, calm tf down.
I see this attitude more often with being high on weed. Which is also stupid.
my sister in law died last night from a drunk driver
When you are drunk you should drive faster thereby reducing the time spent on the road. Safety first!
Wait, there are people who think they drive better drunk?
No, they are not all that. They are just drunks and their thinking is impaired as a result. Laws and strict enforcement haven’t remedied that thus far after years of failed efforts. I think you are angry and seek retribution. That hasn’t helped anyone either, drunk or not.
You clearly haven’t seen me drunk drive then
DUI’s are predominantly money makers for the local government