The main problem is that, in a lot of parts of the US, your options are "drive or be homeless".
The ideal solution is needing less driving overall. But excessively punishing people doesn't fix the problem. They're still gonna drive, most likely.
The ideal solution is needing less driving overall. But excessively punishing people doesn't fix the problem. They're still gonna drive, most likely.
Driving while drunk is not a silly little mistake. A third of all fatal crashes involve drunk drivers. Letting these people drive at all even with a breathalyzer is an abomination. You can expect them to have a similar disregard for other fundamentals of safe driving.
There's this thing in the mainstream where people feel like the best way to handle people doing bad things is to just pummel them into the ground as much as possible.
While that might feel the most justified, that doesn't actually solve the problem. Suspending licenses doesn't stop drunk people from driving, because cars are more or less a necessity.
So, knowing it's a necessity, we have to design the car around that and enforce safe operation by an alcoholic.
Which is a stop-gap solution. A better solution is making cars not a necessity. But until then, we should do the stop-gap.
It wasn't that long ago these devices weren't mandatory and they'd just suspend your license.
I am actually curious now whether that was more effective since the offender had to endure the judgment of the person in their life giving them a ride to work.
Not to mention DUI is a fairly recent development. In the 20th century, it was pretty easy to drive drunk and get away with it.
We arrive at the same place with the same real solutions (the people). The technology doesn't do anything except add extra steps and convince the public something was done.
If anything it creates enough hassle for the offender that new crimes are being committed with harsher consequences (domestic abuse), or dragging additional people into crime they didn't intend (negligent entrustment).
This is always the case. There will always be murderers, and thieves. But technology just helps.
There are real solutions, and fake ones. Fake solutions include "make people not bad anymore". This just doesn't work, there will always be alcoholics, end of.
If there was less of a reliance on cars, there would be less drunk driving. We take drunk driving as a necessary consequence of transportation, but that's just not true. And, if we had less of a reliance on cars, we could actually suspend licenses sooner.
But as it currently stands, we cannot. We would just be permanently fucking people over in such a severe and unnecessary manner. Being unable to drive is one of the most reliable ways to become homeless in many parts of the US. This will only lead to more crime.
I didn't say it directly, but did mention depending on others multiple times in my replies. If you are truly all alone, that is the biggest contributing factor to becoming homeless. We live in a society.
There often is a ton of help for alcoholics with stuff like this. In fact, I would say alcoholics probably have the most support out of any type of addict because it's so common. When a drunk is forced to seek assistance to make their commute, it often comes with strings attached to put them on the path to quitting. I don't see what's so bad about that.
That seems to be the way the system works, selling a treatment rather than a cure, from antacids to national security.