Heisenberg wrote: Back in the early 80s I was a foolish young man who occasionally hit the 3.2 bars like The Rush on 6th and Sheridan and then drove to Conifer with a belly full of watered down swill. I wasn't alone in this stupidity and never had an incident but to this day I feel lucky not to have killed someone or myself. Back then there wasn't a huge DUI deterent like there is now and rarely ever saw a cop once I hit the canyon.
Heisenberg wrote: Back in the early 80s I was a foolish young man who occasionally hit the 3.2 bars like The Rush on 6th and Sheridan and then drove to Conifer with a belly full of watered down swill. I wasn't alone in this stupidity and never had an incident but to this day I feel lucky not to have killed someone or myself. Back then there wasn't a huge DUI deterent like there is now and rarely ever saw a cop once I hit the canyon.
The good days : )
I know someone who long ago had
Drink holders
installed in their VW Bus. They go tired of spilling their "drinks" while driving. :Whistle
I am curious what has happened to per capita (capita being the number of car miles say per year) rates of alcohol related deaths or injuries due to driving since we have ramped up drunk driving penalties from being driven home to the current of getting lots of fines and devices in your car, but not really being taken off the road or sent to jail.
Everyone says we take drunk driving seriously, we don't. We have just made sure that cops and lawyers can make a bunch of money off of it. Why not one drunk driving incident and you go to jail for one year. Next offense, 20 year, next life. Now that would be serious. But the lawyers and the cops would make less money or would have to hang in jails/prisons all day vs. driving in the mountains.
And what's with passengers not being able to drink or have open containers, that just seems like we are being treated like children. So there is an open container, just say the driver cannot drink.
Wouldn't this be confusing to the youngsters? Ok with Mom and Dad so why not with others?
IN NOVEMBER 2014, WE HAVE A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO CLEAN OUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE AND ONE-THIRD OF THE SENATE! DONT BLOW IT!
“When white man find land, Indians running it, no taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water. Women did all the work, Medicine man free. Indian man spend all day hunting and fishing; all night having sex. Only whit man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that.” Indian Chief Two Eagles
on that note wrote: I am curious what has happened to per capita (capita being the number of car miles say per year) rates of alcohol related deaths or injuries due to driving since we have ramped up drunk driving penalties from being driven home to the current of getting lots of fines and devices in your car, but not really being taken off the road or sent to jail.
Everyone says we take drunk driving seriously, we don't. We have just made sure that cops and lawyers can make a bunch of money off of it. Why not one drunk driving incident and you go to jail for one year. Next offense, 20 year, next life. Now that would be serious. But the lawyers and the cops would make less money or would have to hang in jails/prisons all day vs. driving in the mountains.
And what's with passengers not being able to drink or have open containers, that just seems like we are being treated like children. So there is an open container, just say the driver cannot drink.
So you admit that you do not have the facts, yet go on to state a conclusion that drunk driving laws are not effective. FYI, since 1986, alcohol related traffic deaths have dropped by 64%, and 48% since 1992, which I consider to be substantial. If drunk driving results in an injury or fatality, then the driver does go to prison for a significant amount of time. With prisons and jails so overcrowded, with spending on prisons such a huge portion of the state budget, diversion programs have proven to be effective for most first time offenders.
Open container laws prevent the driver from simply handing their drink off to another person. Further, studies have shown a major difference in alcohol related traffic fatalities between states with open container laws and states with no open container laws.
I said we don't take it seriously, I did not come to another conclusion. I think it is a reasonable conclusion. Given all the hype in our society about drunk drivers and how bad they are, I conclude that we don't take it as seriously as we generally claim it should be. I apologize for not making this clear, but this is why I mixed such a statement in a request for data.
I was not implying we should take it seriously given all the facts, I asked about those, I said we should take it seriously and said it because we talk the talk that it is serious as a society - I am implying that we do not walk the walk given all the talk.
Even if I can accept that open container laws or talking the talk or our increased consequences recently vs. decades past, I asked specifically about causality and I am not trying to be difficult.
Without trying to be insulting, for those that may not understand what causality is....We could make a graph of high school crime rates and number of police officers in the schools. We likely see more crime at schools with more cops, if so the graph would be clear....but which one caused which? The relationship between the two variables alone does not determine causality, unless you control for all other variables. This was not possible for your data, so given that, what type of analysis was done to determine this, what specific and extra effort was there to control other variables (like the type of music people listen to or the number of devices in the car or the average number of occupants or the average distance from a drivers eyes to the rear view mirror or the age distribution or the male/female ratio or education or) or was this even stated to have been done associated with the data you have.
That being said, the significant decrease there is likely a connection, many things like Ipods could cause more crashes but the are going down, but cars are safer, so are people crashing drunk and just surviving? I don't think that is unreasonable question?
But I am curious is that an absolute decrease or a per capita, because if it is absolute, then it is even more significant that the graph shows. <I now looked and it is a %, it is not the most convincing graph there, there was one for different states right before and after enforcement and that showed immediate results, without significant changes in the population or technology).
In the real world, outside of data analysis, I do believe everyone being afraid of getting caught does reduce drunk driving, the massive increase in the police patrolling of the country has also likely helped (with this particular thing) due to people feeling like they could get caught <data in your study showed it reasonably, even if one could ask some qs>. Even if I think many could drive a little drunk and that anyone that drives drunk is not always drunk, unlike those that drive stupid, I would prefer that no one drink on the road of before they hit it, especially when my wife is on it. I still assume that there are a number of drunk drivers out there and I am looking just like cops, when I see them I drive away from them, hopefully, unlike the cops.
But back on topic.
I have no issues with a parent deciding everything for their kids at all times, I thought that was their job. I qualify many statements, I don't need to qualify this except to say that to me, childhood ends a couple few years before 18 for a well raised and mentally sound person (see common driving ages for an example). Before that, I see a child as an owned human being.
I had no restrictions on drinking growing up what so ever, my parents would have bought me booze in a restaurant at 12 if I asked. I don't see why it matters unless someone abuses the stuff. A parent should be able to tell if that is going on or their teen has 3 drinks a year. No laws needed for underage drinking, just perhaps laws that parents are responsible for their property. I would have no issues with parents both individually being charged with the crimes their children commit if they are the custodians.
