Some Unpopular Ideas About Drunk Driving
Most people will immediately think that any argument against the criminalization of an action or substance must come from self interest and that alone. The argument I want to make here does not come from self interest (i.e. me wanting to be able to drive drunk), but rather from an interest in liberty and effective governance.
Introduction
But i’ll say it: I’ve driven drunk before.
Extremely drunk. Shouldn’t be walking, riding a bike or operating a pez dispenser drunk– yet I was still driving. I made it home ok. I didn’t crash into a bus full of schoolchildren or even damage any property.
I feel your judgement and I also feel sorry for doing it. I don’t do it anymore since I feel like i’ve gotten away with it too often, but if I’ve had a few beers I don’t worry that i’ll kill a school bus full of kids.
I’ve never gotten a DUI.
Again, before you assume i’m arguing against drunk driving laws and enforcement out of self-interest I want to state that my twin brother was killed by a drunk driver in 2008. Ok that isn’t true, but suddenly you were about to listen to me. I hate topics like this.
I understand how much of a villain having driven drunk makes me, but I also know that 90% of the people I know have done it too. This alone doesn’t make it right, certainly, but what it does suggest is that while it is something people try to avoid for legal reasons, they don’t tend to avoid it for moral or ethical reasons. That is to say, your judgement and emotional feelings about it aren’t real. They’ve been manufactured and instilled upon you by commercials, scare stories and that demolished car the police department brought to your school. Though it says something that while people’s beliefs and ideas about a thing are a certain way, and their actions another very different way. It says, simply:
People are smart enough to know that like smoking pot, driving drunk is not the danger it is made out to be.
An example of this is that we’ve all known someone who said they don’t know how they drove home the previous night on account of being so shitfaced. When you hear this fake scold them and then say “Well at least you made it home ok”.
We don’t ever say “Well at least you didn’t kill a mini-van full of children you fucking monster”, and I think the reason we don’t say that is because that scenario is pretty rare.
In 2008, in a country of 300 million (say, 150 million drinkers) 37,000 people died from drunk driving fatalities. 1.5 Million people were arrested. In 2008 16,500 people were murdered in the US and 3,000 were arrested. Are you telling me it’s easier to catch drunk drivers than murderers? Are you telling me it’s more important to catch drunk drivers than murderers? We know for a fact that 16,500 people were murdered. We don’t know how many people drove drunk, except for the 1.5 million who were arrested for it and had their lives ruined and paid much to the state as penance.
The idea that the police stopped more drunk driving deaths from happening is open to interpretation, however 90% of the people I know have or do drive drunk and probably .5% have gotten DUIs (admittedly, this number could be wrong since many people don’t admit to getting a DUI to friends, however I think it hovers somewhere in the .5-1% range).
Politics
Again, I prefer that drunk drivers do not drive near me, however i’ve driven within the proximity of drunk drivers before (while also drunk sometimes– how meta!) and they didn’t just veer right towards me and crash into me but instead actually seemed to be trying to stay on the road and keep it cool. In response to their presence, I noted it, and moved ahead or away from them.
In law they say “Bad cases make bad law“.
Say a lunatic assaulted a child in the supermarket with a popsicle. There will be outcry.
How did he get the popsicle? Why are crazy people allowed to go into public stores? Popsicles have blunt edges that are potentially dangerous: why aren’t they made more safe or kept in a restricted area?
Any of these outcries calls for a solution; all of the possible solutions are ridiculous and cause more harm to non-violent shoppers than create a solution to the violent lunatics who, short of a popsicle, would’ve used anything else to assault the child, most likely.
Certainly we’ve all been so drunk that even we knew it wasn’t an okay idea to drive. When this happens most sensible people decide to stay put or find a less drunk driver to do the driving. Moving along.
If the State arrests 1.5M citizens per year (or 1/2 of 1% of the population) for drunk driving why doesn’t it assume that this is a social issue, much like the war on drugs concept, that cannot be combated but must instead be turned into a positive? If the Government considered the 37,000 lives ended and 1.53M lives seriously disrupted (try to stop thinking of this act in terms of villainy), they might think that instead of punishing these people they need to serve them, if only to save these 37,000 lives.
So how do they do it?
How They Could Do It
As usual, there is a private way to solve this problem. Take whatever the police, jail and judicial budget is for drunk driving and create a fund that subsidizes taxi cabs with a credit (marketing people: think of a cool name for these cabs now) for driving drunk people home. There are amazing softwares out there that could coordinate these trips to even pack 3 riders in each cab.
Say the target is that any cab giving a drunk person a ride home should not exceed $5 out of pocket. The state matches this $5 averaging about a $10 cab fare. I think this is average. Alcohol taxes could also be reallocated from bullshit programs that don’t work to this cab program. Bars would certainly welcome this tax as it would increase volume.
The sheer volume of demand would be a boon for car-makers, the unemployed, taxi companies and bars. If everyone knew all it would cost to get drunk and get a safe ride home was $10 per night I think most would view anyone not using this service as an idiot or a cheapskate or both. A cottage industry would emerge, offering lower prices to the consumer. The drunker the better! taxi company signs would read.
We could begin to change a a government stance that punishes people for doing a perfectly legal thing too much in concert with another perfectly legal thing, to a stance of:
Hey, people drink. People also need transportation. Let’s react intelligently and humanely to this situation.
After all we’ve had a president with a DUI. 1 out of 44 Presidents with a DUI, our best and brightest, tells me that this drunk driving is an epidemic.
And why not?
Why They Wont Do It
Money.
And Control.
And to prop up a judicial system that judges people based on morality.
A Legal Philospher once said (roughly):
The best system is that which everyone would agree to the rules if they didn’t know how much power they would have.
Do you want to keep the streets safe from drunken maniacs? Sure. Do you want to be harassed anytime after 10pm, especially on your free weekends, for possibly having a few legal drinks? Absolutely not.
So then:
We now see the blue laws of the south (liquor stores closed on Sundays, etc) as bullshit residue from a bygone time where enforcing morality was the duty of the state. We laugh at these laws, and at their origins. We are so much smarter now.
Aren’t we?
Isn’t it that the Blue Laws that the government can force the public into obeying through fear or peer pressure are still ok, as long as everyone agrees to it? But why do you agree to it? Out of compliance? Doubtful. Out of moral code? Also unlikely. Because of personal experience? Very unlikely. Out of peer pressure and an almost perfect environment of non-discussion? Circle gets the square!
DUIs simply bring in too much money for them to possibly want to find a humane solution to this problem. Why help the citizenry when you can rub something in their face and charge them an exorbitant amount of money for the privilege?
If the government accepts that driving drunk is a problem, which they do, why do they only have one solution, and why is that solution so punitive?
Why are people being punished as if they’ve done something terrible when in fact they’ve only done something that could potentially turn out terrible?
In most US law, intent is the key. For example, if you’re driving safely and accidentally crash into a school bus and kill all occupants you haven’t done anything wrong because your intentions were not malicious— it was an accident. Taken a step further, how is drunk driving any different? Driving at 2am is known to be somewhat dangerous (however probably far less dangerous than driving during rush hour), and I don’t think drunk drivers intend to do anything wrong any more than people who buy knives intend to stab people. So why the stigma?
Similar to the war on drugs concept, drinking and driving has been made into a far worse thing than it is.
Here is the issue of most drug users (i’m not a drug user):
- I want to have more fun, relaxation or excitement than is possible in my current situation.
- I have a chemical imbalance and use illegal drugs to regulate it.
- I have been drinking, and would like to go home or to some other place that isn’t this place i’ve been drinking at
- I want to be reckless and put others in danger (just kidding)
Although I am a Libertarian, and many Libertarians may agree with my views, please do not say that Libertarians think drunk driving should be legal as most probably do not and neither do I, instead I just believe that the punishment for a crime should not be harsher than the potential damage said crime can incur, and if government is trying to combat a problem they should choose more tools than just those that are punitive. Thank you please.
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Tagged with drunk driving, dui, laws, stupid, sucks
Good to see you back and bringing something interesting,
The majority of people I know who own a car have driven drunk, none of them have been charged with anything, drink driving is widespread. It happens everywhere. I agree with you mostly on the point of intent, no drink driver intends to kill, the punishment far outweighs the crime with potentially life destroying consequences and most drink drivers who get charged have not caused loss of life or one cent of criminal damage. Anyone who intends to drive home drunk usually knows when they are too fucked up to drive, you just know when it isn’t a good idea, those who chose to drive in that situation and fuck up deserve the punishment but the guy who had a few beers and is slightly buzzed does not. They throw all of the drunk drivers in one basket, most of the time these drunk drivers are not even drunk, the definition of drunk should really be reviewed.
People used to drive drunk all the time, I mean before the law was introduced it wasn’t even a problem. You never hear about alcohol related car accidents before laws were introduced which makes me agree with you that the drink driving laws are another way to bring in revenue for the government. The laws do not act for the safety of the public as much as they line the pockets of the state. I mean really, there are no moral reasons not to drive drunk, there are no ethical reasons not to do so, there is only the threat of legal action that causes people not to do so. Mainly it is about common sense, you know when you are too drunk to operate a vehicle. If you are too drunk then just sleep in the car.
By the way I love your idea, taxis for the drunk. That’s a solid idea there, the revenue would be massive and it deals with the perceived problem as well as the much smaller real one. I also know hundreds of people who drive under the influence of cannabis and from experience I’ve seen that it makes them more cautious than they would normally be yet they get the double whammy of driving under the influence and using an illegal drug. It actually appears to be more safe than driving drunk. It is the same as driving drunk, you know when you are too blazed to drive. It’s obvious when you can’t stand and remove your keys from your pocket without falling down.
I hate those blue laws, means I have to stock up before Sunday, I wonder if this is the only northern state that does this shit. It infringes on my right to make an on the spot decision to get drunk, I do not like that. I’d love to see an unbiased study on drink driving but we know that won’t happen. Same with driving under the influence of marijuana.
Thanks for the read and by the way my first thanksgiving was awesome, I love America.
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Wtf are you talking about
???!!!! “not a problem”???!!!
I am 54 years old and have more than
My share of actual where’s my car stories. But I also have a large group of friends that all remember that 6 of us – SIX! – DIED as teenagers in drunk driving accidents. To say we didn’t hear about these incidents before the laws is stupid as you can be. That’s why the laws and MADD etc STARTED!
Christ you are stupid.
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Certainly you are right that money is a key factor behind all this. But the root cause is fear, especially the fear of death. Once some new fear of death grabs hold of the People (think 911), there is no limit to the control that they will allow to be imposed on their lives (think TSA molestations). And it only gets worse for the innocent.
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What if we put in a separate lane for drunks only? The only way to get busted is to drive in the drunk lane sober, or vice-versa. Just a thought…
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This is the direction we of thinking that i’m talking about
And they could line it with rubber guard rails & make the speed limit 25MPH.
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If the problem is the accidents caused by drunk drivers, maybe we should attack the source of the problem and start teaching drunk driving in Driver’s Ed.
Green Light: Go
Red Light: Stop
Pink Elephant: Slow the f-ck down!
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It wouldn’t work, it’s a stupid idea. If there is a better way to handle the transportation of drunk people that isn’t just the dumbest, most impractical and expensive idea ever, I promise it won’t be you who thought of it. Rest easy, it’s not within your capabilities to solve problems on a large scale. Smile, you’re a keyboard philosopher, that’s what you do, stick to that. Have another few drinks, hop in your car, and go for a drive. Please. Do it tonight.
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you son of a bitch i hope someone reads this, gets drunk and crashes into you and any possible offspring tonight.
I love how you allude to a better solution but don’t share it. Paul Ashton, I will spend the rest of my life hunting you down.
Armchair assholes are a big problem here too.
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What the author should ask himself is why he believes it is necessary to consume so much alcohol that it would inhibit his ability to operate a vehicle. Do you really need that third, fourth, or fifth drink. Drink responsibly, drive sober, or be an asshole. It’s your choice.
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Dont get me wrong Ive driven across town pissed up too but i try not to, And I have been so drunk i have ran red lights. Sometimes youre eyes get cloudy. You stop giving a fuck about how youre driving. i hit lots of curbs when ive had 3-4-5 drinks etc. Im not talking about one or two drinks or a little buzz, theres nothing wrong with that. but if you are drunk, you will know it, and if you drive and get your back snapped or maybe in a fiery wreck and have your face melted off, you’d be wishing you died, it can get more horrifying than just dying then and there. what if you ran a red, clipped a car with a kid in it and the kid died? How the fuck yould you feel then. I know I do it sometimes because im an impulsive, janky bastard but its not a good plan! DONT FUCKIN DO IT ON PURPOSE
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I think the reprieve is fake, not the moral outrage. At some point somebody we like or ourselves does it and then we adjust our morals to define those people as OK. News flash – this is the entire basis of human morality.
Lots of universities offer little ride-home programs for students (roughly 200% of them are called Tipsy Taxi) and they’re generally kickass and well used, but way too small. At minimum we can take them as evidence that the idea works, and can even be cheap. It would be a great use for WoD money (why yes I do categorize stiff DUI penalties as WoD money).
But here’s something else: 37 kilodeaths sure, but the average car accident is more maiming than lethal. See also US Marine casualty figures (lose four limbs but keep your head, you’re not a “casualty”) Consider also that pedestrians get hit a lot, in incidents on the books as “hit and run.” Add to that the huge economic cost of consistent vehicle damage and insurance claims. Then there’s this sentence – “Are you telling me it’s easier to catch drunk drivers than murderers?” Why yes, yes it is. In fact a majority of drunk drivers are pulled over on specific suspicion of being drunk, which doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because you’re all over the fucking road. A substantial percentage of DUIs are assessed after the driver has already crashed into a tree or other stationary object.
I want your program. I want it to be huge and universal. Not only will it save tons of lives, it’ll free up police to deal directly and harshly with people who are weaving across a three-lane highway or who have just finished crashing into something.
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