So I'm going to Prison for 2 years

[It's Brandt]

MuresanForDUI?

[Tennenbaum]

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i hope you get raped a lot

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i think youre lucky as hell that you get to go to prison instead of being dead or killing someone else

i hope prison sucks 4 you

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This attitude seems dumb to me. DUI seems to cover a whole lot of ground, in terms of actual capacity to drive. I've known people who have gotten DUIs that the cops acknowledged at the time were [censored]; one of my friends was even told "Hey, trust me, just go get a lawyer and you'll beat this no problem." I could be wrong, but I think this was after he blew something legal like a .05 and the cop decided to call him intoxicated anyway.

Now, the OP does not sound like it was that kind of deal. And there certainly are some DUIs where the people are in no shape to be driving at all. But I think it's a broad enough legal classification that treating it as one of the few remaining True Evils is usually going a little overboard.

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Say that again when someone you love is killed by someone who is drunk. People make mistakes. I get that. I have a few friends who have had DUI's. But getting a second or a third is inexcusable. Especially since the two 'agg' ones he's referring to, were because HE HAD NO LICENSE at the time. He made his bed and now he has to lie in it. The only thing I hope is that you truly learned a lesson and it will not happen again. For your sake and for the innocent people out there that have to drive with you.

[ikestoys]

bhoys, .08 isn't you wasted, but it is enough to significantly impair your ability to drive, even if you feel fine.

[MuresanForMVP]

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every time to try to argue that the current bar (.08) for classification of dui is too low or should not apply to all people, you are indirectly attempting to justify the actions of drunk drivers.

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No...just no. I argued that the bar was too low because it doesn't have a significant effect on reducing the activity it's in place to punish, and serves to do nothing but burden the courts, and crowd the jails. So it's meaningless to keep reducing the limit, if it's only effect is a negative one. Think critically, try something different instead of calling for harsher penalties. Current drug sentences for minor drug offenders doesn't seem to be slowing drug use, hell let's just give them the gallows! That should stop em! A drastic example, but I hope you see my point.

[Falc]

It's pretty sick how different you americans view drinking and driving versus people in Sweden, where I'm from. Alot of you argue that .08 is to low. Here you get fined if you have over 0.02 and if you're over 0.08 thats considiered major drinking and driving (dunno about the punishments) and I've never ever heard anyone complain about that.

[MuresanForMVP]

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I should clarify that I would never drink anything close to my limit and drive in high speed zones. The only times that I do this are in areas with no higher thana 35 mph limit.

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I commend you for that, its good that you only confine your impaired driving to school and residential zones.

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good of you to join us late in the thread Kevin

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You've been tilting me this entire thread. The only reason I can come up with for you posting this drivel is that you disagree with Kevin's slight on the retard who confines his DUI to certain low-mph areas. Confirm/deny?

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I was baggin' on Kevin for coming in hours late, and quoting a post that had already been explained probably 100+ posts ago. And from what I've seen from this thread, people like Tuq, Vyse and I have been the ones attempting to be the most reasonable. We've avoided making things into stupid,pointless emotional arguments yet we have winners like you simply coming in here saying "so you support DUI huh? Well I know a friend who was killed by a drunk driver" and "all drunk drivers should burn in hell". All this despite the fact that NOT ONE OF US HAS BEEN CONDONING OR EXCUSING DRUNK DRIVING. Statements like that add nothing, but serve to muddy the argument. Then you have By-Tor essentially saying that any view aside from "punish drunk drivers by the death penalty" is excusing their behavior. Sorry,it's just not true.

[MuresanForMVP]

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MuresanForDUI?

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This is awesome, can a mod make this my custom title please?

[CallMeIshmael]

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I should clarify that I would never drink anything close to my limit and drive in high speed zones. The only times that I do this are in areas with no higher thana 35 mph limit.

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I commend you for that, its good that you only confine your impaired driving to school and residential zones.

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good of you to join us late in the thread Kevin

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You've been tilting me this entire thread. The only reason I can come up with for you posting this drivel is that you disagree with Kevin's slight on the retard who confines his DUI to certain low-mph areas. Confirm/deny?

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I was baggin' on Kevin for coming in hours late, and quoting a post that had already been explained probably 100+ posts ago.

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There are a grand total of 2 posts in between Kevin's post, and the post he quoted. Neither of the two were in response to the post.

[MuresanForMVP]

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He did not hurt or kill anybody, are people really suggesting that he should receive such a harsh sentence because he "potentially could have killed someone"?

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While I think there is merit in your argument about the LENGTH of the punishment, the above quoted is the dumbest [censored] I've read.

First, it's very results-oriented.

Second, while attemped murder is worse than DUI, if I try to shoot someone and miss, should I not be punished?

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I'm gonna avoid to resort to personal attacks, but you appear to have a personal stake in this matter and have shown an inability to think about this objectively.

Your comparison with attempted murder is completely idiotic. Please note the HUGE difference between the words "attempted" and "potential". This whole attempted murder thing was completely out of left field. For plowing into some kid you should be punished...for vehicular manslaughter. For driving under the influence you should be punished for *gasp* driving under the influence. DUI is a crime, people should be punished FOR THAT CRIME, not for what that crime could POSSIBLY or POTENTIALLY elicit, especially when laws are already in place to handle the elicited situation. Seriously, all these comparisons of DUI to attempted murder and the like just make you people look incapable of logical thought.


So far your only argument for such a long sentence is, "well it could possibly kill someone" or "well what if it was your kid who got crushed by a drunk driver?" as if either of those prove anything. Seriously, attempted murder?

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Yeah I agree thats a bit of a stretch. Its more like someone shooting off a gun in a crowded area but trying not to hit anyone. I would welcome them into my surrounding area. They probably should not be punished since letting them continue to discharge rounds in the vacinity of other helpless individuals who are just trying to travel on foot is perfectly fine. Yeah.. thats ok with me.

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fwiw, CMI, I was referring to this one, I just happened to quote the most recent post

[CallMeIshmael]

MVP,

ah


all,


since people on both sides in this thread seem to like to refer to "studies" they've seen showing that 0.1->0.08 has no effect on accident rates or that 0.08 is the point when we get OMG DRUNK, without doing a whole lot of linking, I found a few myself.



The 4 I found are all scholary, so they probably did a better job wrt to methods than most of the things you'd find on the web, but are also kinda dense.


These are the main conclusions of each:


http://66.102.1.104/scholar?num=50&h...lar.google.com/

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Our main results show how lowering illegal BAC limits to 0.5 mg/ml has been an effective policy to save lives in particular road user groups in Europe. From these groups we can emphasize the case of males, to whom it has been especially effective in urban areas, and the case of all drivers between 20 and 49 years old. However, 0.5 mg/ml illegal BAC limitsare not found statistically significant for the whole population unless it is accompanied by specific enforcement activities as random checks on the road. Moreover, I find an important time lag longer than two years in the effectiveness of the policy.

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http://66.102.1.104/scholar?num=50&h...lar.google.com/


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In January 1998 the legal BAC-limit in Austria was lowered from .08% to .05%. Injuries due todrunk driving decreased during the first year by approximately 10%. During the first months thedecrease was more significant than later in the year. However, a moderate increase in injuries due todrunk driving had to be stated in the year following. Already in 1992 the BAC-limit for the specificgroup of novice drivers had been lowered from .08% to .01%. An accident analysis after five yearsof observation indicated a reduction of drunk driving injuries in the group of novice drivers by30.9% in contrast to a reduction of only 5.9% in the group of experienced drivers.The accident reduction may be explained not only as a consequence of the legal alterations but alsoas a consequence of intensive support in the media, persistent police enforcement and theintroduction of mandatory psychological driver improvement courses for drunk drivers. A recentevaluation study proves an almost 50% lower recidivism rate of drunk drivers who participated in apsychological driver improvement course compared to a control group without a course

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http://66.102.1.104/scholar?num=50&h...lar.google.com/

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the year 1990 the lower BAC limit was reduced from 0.05 to 0.02percent. Some years later, in 1994, the upper BAC limit was also reduced from 0.15 to 0.10percent. In addition, the maximum penalty for aggravated drunken driving was increased andthe police got more far-reaching possibilities of control. This study examines the effects ofthe most recent drunken driving legislation on fatal road-traffic accidents and road-trafficaccidents with severe personal injury. The assessment of the effect is carried out by ARIMAanalysis on monthly data for 1986 to 1997. The models include alcohol sales (measure ofalcohol consumption) and delivery of petrol to retailers (measure of traffic density) as well asthe two legislative reforms implemented in 1990 and 1994. The analysis showed a significantreduction of fatal road-traffic accidents depending on the 1990 and 1994 legislation. Theresults concerning road-traffic accidents with severe personal injury are more unstable, butthe results points in the same direction

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http://66.102.1.104/scholar?num=50&h...lar.google.com/

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To determine whether the 0.08% law produced a decrease in alcohol-related crashes, we examinedseveral indicators. Alcohol involvement in all crashes in North Carolina between 1991 and 1995, as well asfatal and serious injury crashes only were examined. In addition, surrogate measures of alcohol-relatedcrashes (nighttime crashes; nighttime fatal and serious injury crashes) were also examined. All thesemeasures have been declining, almost continuously, in North Carolina since the early 1980s. To control forthe effects of this general trend, as well as seasonal fluctuations, we carried out structural time seriesanalyses examining monthly crash statistics. In each case we looked for evidence of either an immediatedecrease in the rate or a change in the general trend of alcohol-related crashes following implementation ofthe lower BAC limit. There was no significant change in the rate, nor in the trend, coinciding withintroduction of the lower BAC limit, for any of the measures examined

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However, as I mentioned above the following may be an issue

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To see whether the BAC levels of persons had been reduced by the 0.08% law, even if not broughtbelow the 0.10% threshold of the previous limit, we examined the mean monthly BACs of fatally injureddrivers whose BAC was above 0.10%. Again there was no evidence of an effect of the new BAC limit. Themonthly average BACs remained essentially unchanged from 1990 through 1995, with an overall mean of0.21%

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(this obv doesnt prove the claim the the entire population hasnt changed, since this only looks at a specific subset, but it is in line with the counter hypothesis that non-results are the product of unchanged beahaviour)



Up until now, I didnt really have an opinion either way, re: the difference between 0.1 and 0.08. After skimming those articles, I would say Im leaning strongly towards the 0.08 side.


disclaimer: I have only skimeed the articles (there is like 100 pages there, and Im sure as hell not reading all of it), so if some quote is taken out of context (which I dont think will happen) it was an accident.