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Stupid Pet Peeves

Bulletproof said:
Penalties for driving while slightly intoxicated are HUGE.

For reference here, if you are talking on your cell phone, just talking, you drive at the same impairment level as a person who has a 0.14 BAC. The legal limit in most of the U.S. is .08 BAC.

The penalty for being at .08 BAC is thousands of dollars in fines, automatic suspension of driving privileges for at least 6 months and around $10,000 in additional car insurance costs. Usually some community service, some classes, a meeting where a victim tells you their story, counseling, etc.

The punishment for that is very very severe.

Now if we're talking about people who drive while inebriated, yeah, no penalty is big enough. But if we're talking about people who pose less of a risk to other drivers than a soccer mom blabbing to her friend on the phone, the penalties are completely out of ****ing control.

And here we are, ready to lower our limit to .05 BAC and impose the exact same penalties.

If we start putting people who text and drive in jail and start suspending licences for people talking on phones while driving then you can tell me how the penalties for drunk driving aren't close to being strict enough.

Now if there was a tiered system and people above .14 BAC were nailed hard, I'd be all for it. But .08 BAC having their life destroyed? No thanks. Not until we start treating all driving risks equally.
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To start, I’m in favor of a tiered system.
I’m also in favor of a requirement that all phone use in a vehicle be hands free. I’ve never texted while driving with the phone in my hand. I used to drive and talk on the phone holding it to my ear. There’s no doubt it affected my driving. Then a wonderful and affordable thing came along called Bluetooth. Now, I plug my phone into the USB port in my truck and it connects via CarPlay. Comes through the speakers. All I have to do is push a button to answer a call, just like changing a radio station. Same thing for calling someone, “reading” a text, or sending a text. It’s just like carrying on a conversation with a passenger.
I also think eating while driving is hazardous and be illegal.
 
I want to point out here, since I'm like the board beer drinker, I don't drink and drive. I just don't. I drink the majority of the time at home, beer that I made myself. When my wife and I go out we select a designated driver. Sometimes it's me. Sometimes it's her. Sometimes neither of us drink. If I go out with friends most of the time my wife will take me to wherever and pick me up. I'm super lucky like that. I don't think there is a blurry line between intoxicated and sober. If you've been drinking, you're intoxicated. Have someone else drive you.
 
Bulletproof said:
I want to point out here, since I'm like the board beer drinker, I don't drink and drive. I just don't. I drink the majority of the time at home, beer that I made myself. When my wife and I go out we select a designated driver. Sometimes it's me. Sometimes it's her. Sometimes neither of us drink. If I go out with friends most of the time my wife will take me to wherever and pick me up. I'm super lucky like that. I don't think there is a blurry line between intoxicated and sober. If you've been drinking, you're intoxicated. Have someone else drive you.
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Midweek after work beers i drive home, I normally have 5 or 6 pints and i'm pretty fine to drive, on weekends I normally get the train in and a cab home.
 
Bulletproof said:
Penalties for driving while slightly intoxicated are HUGE.

For reference here, if you are talking on your cell phone, just talking, you drive at the same impairment level as a person who has a 0.14 BAC. The legal limit in most of the U.S. is .08 BAC.

The penalty for being at .08 BAC is thousands of dollars in fines, automatic suspension of driving privileges for at least 6 months and around $10,000 in additional car insurance costs. Usually some community service, some classes, a meeting where a victim tells you their story, counseling, etc.

The punishment for that is very very severe.

Now if we're talking about people who drive while inebriated, yeah, no penalty is big enough. But if we're talking about people who pose less of a risk to other drivers than a soccer mom blabbing to her friend on the phone, the penalties are completely out of ****ing control.

And here we are, ready to lower our limit to .05 BAC and impose the exact same penalties.

If we start putting people who text and drive in jail and start suspending licences for people talking on phones while driving then you can tell me how the penalties for drunk driving aren't close to being strict enough.

Now if there was a tiered system and people above .14 BAC were nailed hard, I'd be all for it. But .08 BAC having their life destroyed? No thanks. Not until we start treating all driving risks equally.
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I had a friend who was too drunk to drive after a night in wendover. So he decides that instead of driving he would just sleep in his truck that night.
He ended up getting a dui that completely destroyed his life. He was trying to do the right thing for God’s sake. Apparently sleeping in your vehicle while drunk with the keys near you is the same as driving drunk. That’s pretty stupid imo.

Oh and add spend a night or two in jail and lose your job to the list of consequences for a dui.
 
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Bulletproof said:
I want to point out here, since I'm like the board beer drinker, I don't drink and drive. I just don't. I drink the majority of the time at home, beer that I made myself. When my wife and I go out we select a designated driver. Sometimes it's me. Sometimes it's her. Sometimes neither of us drink. If I go out with friends most of the time my wife will take me to wherever and pick me up. I'm super lucky like that. I don't think there is a blurry line between intoxicated and sober. If you've been drinking, you're intoxicated. Have someone else drive you.
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I don't understand your previous point about 0.08 vs 0.14 BAC, then. It seems to directly contradict this post
 
colton said:
I don't understand your previous point about 0.08 vs 0.14 BAC, then. It seems to directly contradict this post
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His point seemed to be more about how the laws need to be made stricter for driving while on your cell as that as is bad as driving with a BAC of 0.14 iirc without looking back to his post, and that lowering the BAC legal limit from 0.8 to 0.5 isn’t really doing anything other than screwing over people who get BAC’s within those two thresholds as it’s so low.

Sure he doesn’t want people drinking and driving but getting pulled over with a BAC of 0.6 and having one’s life ruined as a result is laughable.
 
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colton said:
I don't understand your previous point about 0.08 vs 0.14 BAC, then. It seems to directly contradict this post
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I think he was saying that the penalty for driving with a 0.08 BAC should not be the same as driving with a 0.14 BAC. I would agree with that.
It would be like the penalty for shoplifting being the same as the penalty for armed robbery or something.
 
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