when you screw up...

Do it right.

My soon to be ex-Brother in law got caught Driving under the influence here in NJ last week. He was twice the legal limit. How he managed to go this long without getting stopped is beyond me. I can remember when he and my sis lived with me. He used to go out drinking and would come home so drunk his truck would be on the kerb and he had E36 M3 himself... this was one of the major reasons my sis and he are sperated and soon to be divorced

Well, last night he got caught again. He has not even gotten a lawyer for the first offense. I can only hope that the Judge throws the book at him.

First offense at high levels of alcohol:

License loss 7 months to a year

$300–$500 fine

$230 IDRC* fee

$100 to drunk driving fund

$100 to AERF*

$1,000/year (for 3 years) surcharge

$75 to Neighborhood Services Fund Up to 30 days 12–48 hours IDRC*

BAC 0.15% or greater: ignition interlock device during license suspension and 6 months - 1 year following restoration

Second Offense in less than 10 years License loss 2 years

$500–$1,000 fine

$280 IDRC* fee

$100 to drunk driving fund

$100 to AERF*

$1,000/year (for 3 years) surcharge

$75 to Neighborhood Services Fund 48 hours–

90 days 30 days CS

12–48 hours IDRC*

Ignition interlock device during license suspension and 1-3 years following restoration

I hope the Judge throws the book at him. I think he needs some state sponsored sobering up time. At least I do not have to worry about him trying to get custody of my niece.

A lot of the serious drunks will continue to drive, even without a licence.

http://www.aaafoundation.org/multimedia/index.cfm?button=unlicenseddrunk

That's just a data point, and it's a little dated (2003). But it's still going on. Google "unlicensed drunk drivers" without the quotes, and you'll see the horror stories.

I'll admit..I've got my own problems with alcohol (and furthermore, that I've had four beers as I write this and will probably have two more before bedtime), but as an enthusiast, I love driving so much that I'll do anything to stay off the road after drinking, expecially now that I'm old enough to have experienced having friends die from drunk driving (either doing it themselves, or being hit by one). I can't imagine that many of the average "appliance owners" who drink as heavily as I do would make the same decisions I have, just because they consider driving a "means to an end", rather than a source of pleasure.

I used to live with some pretty well developed alcoholics. They drove drunk all the time and never got caught. I think one of the reasons is that frankly, they had a lot of practice and they were good at it. Realistically, they were drunk as much, or more then they weren't so they had lots of time to learn.

One of them, Tom, was a pretty cool guy, apparently a pretty good pitcher in high school. Last I hear of him he finally accomplished something he was trying to do for a few years... he killed himself driving off a cliff in Oregon.

aircooled, I've seen a lot of that. The difference between us was that I was a car guy, and they were not. The exceptions I've seen would be the couple of old SCCA buddies I had that were involved in drunk driving accidents (from the drinking side). One ended up a paraplegic after putting his car into the trees (and never drove drunk again afterwards), and the other tried to pass a local over the double yellow lines on an uphill stretch on his bike trying to go home after a Corner Worker party at the track..he centerpunched a semi coming over the hill. I still curse that they wouldn't just buy a berkeleying $20 Wal-Mart tent (or at least crash out in mine) and stay with us in the campsite. Only recompense I find is that neither of them killed anyone other than themselves with their poor decisions.

Most of the "functioning alcoholics" (and honestly, I'm wondering if I am part of that group) I've met in the enthusiast community don't bet upon their ablity to drive when drunk, they simply find ways to avoid driving at all when impared. Large stockpiles of alcohol at home, avoiding work that requires you to be "on call", staying at home instead of going to bars (hell, that's cheaper anyway!), and other stuff I've either forgotten..or do so automatically so often without realizing I've done it on a particular day.

Having barely escaped death at the hands of a drunk driver, I am understandably prejudiced. 30 plus years later I still deal with the injuries caused by that drunk. There simply is no excuse for anyone to drive while impaired. Some yeas ago, I was having dinner at a tavern near my shop. I overheard a conversation at the bar, where several friends were critising a fellow drinker for his daily imbibing. His response was that some people fish, some golf, some hunt, he drinks! That is his hobby. The disturbing part was watching the heads nod in agreement with his justification. Every week I see reports of drunk drivers and accidents with alcohol involved in my local area. It seems that many people in the area agree with the drinkers I observed that boozing it up is a socially acceptable "hobby".

Hrm. I'm on the very unpopular side of the fence here.

{soapbox}

While I agree completely that one should never drive while drunk, I do not hold the same opinion about one who's had a few drinks, and I do not agree with using BAC as an indicator of someone's lack of capacity to function.

Everyone has a drinking and driving story because everyone LOOKS for drinking and driving stories. It's a self-proving theory. Couple that with statistics that are very loose on what determines an accident being "alcohol-related" and suddenly every accident is 100% due to the involvement of booze.

But here's the problem. How many accidents have you been in that were NOT alchohol related? What percentage of accidents do NOT involve an intoxicated driver? How many "alchohol-related" accidents would've happened without the presence of alchohol (i.e. how many were actually due to affected reation times as opposed to the involved's normal driving habits). If one beer is enough to make you a distracted driver (low body weight, one beer/hour is enough to elevate your BAC to "legally drunk"), and that makes you dangerous, how come other more common things that are just as (if not more) distracting are not equally punished?

Biggest of all, without knowing me or anything about me (other than that I'm a human male), how can you determine how much I can consume before I am no longer "safe" behind the wheel? And how can you determine that I'm safer if I'm sober?

It really frustrates me that in this country there's this air of "If you have one drink and so much as look at your car keys, you WILL kill an innocent child!"

I feel that no one looks at the situation rationally. People have a close-call, then get hell-bent on preventing that one particular situation from every happening to themselves again (by preventing it from happening to anyone). It's like the TSA. Rather than doing general investigation to prevent "bad things", it's just knee-jerk reactions tailored to curb copies of prior attemtps to do "bad things".

{/soapbox}

ReverendDexter wrote: Hrm. I'm on the very unpopular side of the fence here. {soapbox} While I agree completely that one should never drive while *drunk*, I do not hold the same opinion about one who's had a few drinks, and I do not agree with using BAC as an indicator of someone's lack of capacity to function. Everyone has a drinking and driving story because everyone LOOKS for drinking and driving stories. It's a self-proving theory. Couple that with statistics that are very loose on what determines an accident being "alcohol-related" and suddenly every accident is 100% due to the involvement of booze. But here's the problem. How many accidents have you been in that were NOT alchohol related? What percentage of accidents do NOT involve an intoxicated driver? How many "alchohol-related" accidents would've happened without the presence of alchohol (i.e. how many were actually due to affected reation times as opposed to the involved's normal driving habits). If one beer is enough to make you a distracted driver (low body weight, one beer/hour is enough to elevate your BAC to "legally drunk"), and that makes you dangerous, how come other more common things that are just as (if not more) distracting are not equally punished? Biggest of all, without knowing me or anything about me (other than that I'm a human male), how can you determine how much I can consume before I am no longer "safe" behind the wheel? And how can you determine that I'm *safer* if I'm sober? It really frustrates me that in this country there's this air of "If you have one drink and so much as look at your car keys, you WILL kill an innocent child!" I feel that no one looks at the situation rationally. People have a close-call, then get hell-bent on preventing that one particular situation from every happening to themselves again (by preventing it from happening to anyone). It's like the TSA. Rather than doing general investigation to prevent "bad things", it's just knee-jerk reactions tailored to curb copies of prior attemtps to do "bad things". {/soapbox}

Agreed 100%.

I despise anyone idiotic enough to get drunk and then drive anywhere.

That being said, some skepticism is required. If I fly down the road at 120 mph, stone sober, and plow into a parking lot of a bar and hit five drunk guys sitting at a table, guess what, it's an alcohol related accident.

In reply to Datsun1500:

That just means somebody in the accident had alcohol in their system. A tree could have fallen on their car and it would be alcohol related. So, the real number of other causes could be much higher.

Zero tolerance as far as I'm concerned. There's no way to justify it. There aren't many drivers on the road that would benefit from reduced reaction times, and I know too many people whose lives were messed up by drunk driving.

Datsun1500 wrote: Just googled statistics and it said 37% of fatalities were alcohol related. We need to cut down and regulate whatever caused the other 63% of them, it's an epidemic....

OMG! He's right!

People we need to mobilize against this dire threat!

Keith wrote: Zero tolerance as far as I'm concerned. There's no way to justify it. There aren't many drivers on the road that would benefit from reduced reaction times, and I know too many people whose lives were messed up by drunk driving.

Were their lives messed up from drunk driving, or from the legal penalties of being caught driving while "legally" drunk?

Out here in California, first DUI comes with a mandatory 1 year suspension of your license. That loss of being able to legally drive would put a serious hurt on just about everyone I know.

I'd like to toss out there that I greatly appreciate this board's ability to have a civil debate about such a heated topic.

We've all made mistakes and got away with them. Driving buzzed, hitting a corner in the wrong gear waaaay too fast, checking the fuel level in your Dad's VW with a match, this guy's been pushing his luck a long time.

Now he knows. I believe another one and he dries out in the Big House for a while.

Dan

In a former life I used to bartend. I've met many, many people with multiple DUIs that continue to drive. (legal or not) Unfortunately some of these folks will refuse to quit driving until they are killed, or thrown in jail. The loss of license won't stop them.

I had a "regular" at a bar I worked at in IL that had 5 DUIs. (2 in WI, 3 in IL) He had served time for DUI, been fined countless thousands, and STILL drove intoxicated. Gladly, he finally woke up and would take cabs to the bar. The sad thing was, he was an intelligent, decent guy, who had no control over his alcoholism. Hopefully he has cleaned up and is still alive.

It is my opinion that most alcohol-related accidents are either caused by young drivers who don't know their limits, or by serious alcoholics that regularly drive with BAC over .18 or even .2.

States set the legal limit at .08 for revenue generating purposes.

Most causal drinkers aren't the problem, it is the hard-core folks that are getting wasted and passing out, crossing lines, etc.

I'd rather be a passenger in a car with the driver at a .08 level than be a passenger in the same car while the driver was texting.

Joe Gearin wrote: Most causal drinkers aren't the problem, it is the hard-core folks that are getting wasted and passing out, crossing lines, etc.

I'll agree with that, with one exception-year end holidays. Seems like at the company Christmas party or on New Year's eve, every single person that never touches the stuff during the rest of the year decides to have a drink or three. I'd take riding with a regular drinker at .08 before even looking at someone without a tolerance for alcohol at .04.

And agreed about the texting, too.

Keith wrote: Zero tolerance as far as I'm concerned. There's no way to justify it.

Yes there is, I just had three beers over the course of two hours at the bar/pub/restaurant. Now watch me drive home... TADA! I'm not spending $20+ on a cab after having three drinks (plus having to get the car I arrived in eventually). The justification is there are different levels of impairment, and for me, 3 beers is no impairment whatsoever. You can drink without being impaired, and you can drive after having a drink without being anymore danger than Grandma who can't see over her steering wheel doing 90 on the highway swerving all over the place. So yes, boom, justified. If you've ever talked on a cellphone while driving, you've been in a much more dangerous situation than a person driving who has had 1-3 beers.

914Driver wrote: ... checking the fuel level in your Dad's VW with a match...

Bwahaha. I bet you only do that once.

My personal feelings are that all drunk drivers should be tried and if found guilty executed.

When I was in highschool my girl friend (next door neighbor) was killed by a drunk driver. She was out with a girlfriend in her Spitfire when a drunk plowed into the back of the stopped at a traffic light car at ~80mph. She was trapped in the car and burnt to death.

Twelve days after I graduated from college a drunk driver ran a stop sign and hit me broadside. I lost the sight in my left eye.

Two years after I was married my father-in-law was killed by a drunk driver, himself! Ran into a bridge abutment at ~50mph.

Story for another day .....

HiTempguy wrote:

Keith wrote: Zero tolerance as far as I'm concerned. There's no way to justify it.

Yes there is, I just had three beers over the course of two hours at the bar/pub/restaurant. Now watch me drive home... TADA! I'm not spending $20+ on a cab after having three drinks (plus having to get the car I arrived in eventually). The justification is there are different levels of impairment, and for me, 3 beers is no impairment whatsoever. You can drink without being impaired, and you can drive after having a drink without being anymore danger than Grandma who can't see over her steering wheel doing 90 on the highway swerving all over the place. So yes, boom, justified. If you've ever talked on a cellphone while driving, you've been in a much more dangerous situation than a person driving who has had 1-3 beers.

I'll agree with this.

ReverendDexter wrote:

Keith wrote: Zero tolerance as far as I'm concerned. There's no way to justify it. There aren't many drivers on the road that would benefit from reduced reaction times, and I know too many people whose lives were messed up by drunk driving.

Were their lives messed up from drunk driving, or from the legal penalties of being caught driving while "legally" drunk? I'd like to toss out there that I greatly appreciate this board's ability to have a civil debate about such a heated topic.

Well, one's in a wheelchair and another has a felony on his record after the damage to his passengers. So you decide.

I'm not sure I'd want to compare my driving to a 90 year old woman's as a sign of my competence. Is drinking and driving the only problem on the roads? No, of course not. Is it a major problem - and one that can 100% be avoided with a little foresight? Definitely.

I have only slightly higher than zero tolerance for drinking in general. No excuse you can ever make will make it acceptable to operate a machine capable of killing others on public motorways with intentional degradation of your senses and reflexes. There are too many bad drivers out there sober, no need to make the problem worse by adding any unnecessary impairment to the situation.

I feel the same way about talking on the phone while driving. Why choose to add the distraction? Same goes for driving while exhausted.

No matter how good you are when you start, or how above average you are even while impaired, you are still responsible if you make the decision to operate with any issues you could have chosen to prevent. That willful neglect of my safety is criminal and should be punished.

locally we had 2 19/20ish year old girls die in a drunk driving accident... they where ridding with a guy I worked with and their car was hit by a drunk driver... this was 4 years or so ago... to this day their death is a big deal... and why wouldn't it be... they where young, pretty girls. (and I still think no one would care if they had been ugly fat girls)

but their families still have "don't drink and drive, it's the law" or some such rubbish on it with their pics on it... the irony is neither where wearing safety belts... had they been they would have lived like the driver of that car did (again it was the other car that was drunk)

I still roll my eyes every time I pass the billboards... also laugh because a few accidents have happened where the families put up a makeshift sign at the accident sight...

not to downplay the seriousness of drunk driving... but in general common sense in driving goes a long way... just so few people have any or use it

My random ramblings on this:

First of all, .08 is a complete joke for most people. We had a breathalyzer at a party earlier this year. When I was at .08, I was just getting started (college student). I wasn't drunk, passed a field sobriety test (not administered by any person of any qualification) and passed the pencil-eye test. But what was scary is that my girlfriend did not pass the pencil-eye test. She was drunk at .08. I would not want to get in the car with her.

Now, this is something that obviously needs to be regulated. There needs to be a point "this is impaired, at this point it is illegal". Because of that, I'm okay with the .08 as the limit. It only takes one.

And I do agree with rather being in car with a .08 person who regularly drinks than a person at .04 who doesn't, or a cell phone talker, etc.

Years ago I participated in an training event.

The local PD in Enid Oklahoma would gather a group of young folks and feed them drinks while training officers from the surrounding counties and departments in the next room. They kept a precise record of what we drank as well as our BAC.

In the afternoon they would release all of us to the room where we rotated from group to group of LEOs who woul adminster a feild sobriety test. To keep them honest, they told them there was at least one sober person (there wasn't). I passed every group with flying colors, I blew a .14 for my final breathalyzer.

The next day they adresses shortcomings and re-covered some techniques while the same group was filled with booze again. Only one group would have taken me in. I was even worse the 2nd day.

It's great training for the officers becuase the O'Club is loaned to them for free and the class basically cost as much as the booze we drink. They like training on military becuase we tend to pass most feild sobriety test.

The piont is this. Neither the BAC or the breathalyzer is an accurate measurement of my or anyone else's ability to function and the only questioning will come after I have done something stupid.

But agree or not, it is the law of the land. Liscencing in most states is a joke but it is illegal to operate a car without one. Same for drinking. Can you operate a car after 3 beers, most of you can, but the rules are pretty clear that you are not allowed to.

Follow the rules. Same for texting, distracted driving, hell driving while you are tired, and how many of us have done that?

You can't regulate common sense, it just seems more tragic in these cases becuase folks get killed.