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Comment by robrenaud | Hacker News Reader

> Why not hand out serious prison time for first-time drunk drivers? It would increase road safety so much.

Research suggests that you might be wrong.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/twitter-politics-drunken-...

> Key quote: “Harsher sanctions to drinking and driving may generate no marginal deterrent effect if drivers’ perceived risks of receiving the punishments are low. Therefore, rather than escalating sanction severity, increasing the probability of detection and/or enforcement may be more effective in reducing drinking and driving.”

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This is a good observation, and reminds me of an article I read a while back about why the parole system works so poorly (it was a great article, sorry that I don't have the link).

The theory was that much or our criminal law system makes an assumption of a rational actor. A 1% chance of severe penalty would deter a crime where they payoff is minor (i.e.., the small chance of a severely punished DUI would convince a rational actor to call a cab).

But it doesn't appear to work that way. The article suggested that the best way to deter certain types of repeated criminal behavior are consequences that are swift, certain, and measured (in severity). Instead, what we have is slow, random, and severe. Supposedly, that does little to deter crime, but does a great filling up prisons and creating people who have a lifelong criminal history for job applications.

Your description of people's reaction to the risk and severity of punishment sounds entirely rational.

A rational actor would be twice as deterred if you kept the risk of punishment the same and doubled the severity.

But actual people don't respond that way. They respond to the risk rather than the expected punishment.

You'd probably need to define and use "marginal severity," which unfortunately probably ends up being subjective and difficult to analyze.

The problem with this is everyone's definition of Rational Actor is arbitrary in what incentives it excludes or includes. Talking about what a Rational Actor would do makes about as much sense as claiming your opinion is fully objective.

In my opinion, the version of rationality that has the most relevance to economic analysis (and should really be the primary definition of the term in economics) is bounded rationality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality

This is a purely anecdotal response but I live in Texas now and come from Canada where the punishments for drunk driving are very severe. In short I am absolutely floored by the casual nature of drunk driving here, across all segments of society compared to Canada.

In Canada my very alternative friends to whom casual law breaking like illegal drinking and drugs would be nothing, would almost universally never consider drinking and driving.

In the US those same type of friends seeming drink and drive 5-6 days a week, often after consuming amounts of alcohol I consider ridiculous. Additionally I regularly interact with professionals and even professors who drink and drive.

This is purely my opinion, but the difference I experience here is outa control when it comes to drinking and driving and I do think the harsh punishments have something to do with it.

Texas is not realy the USA, they don't like much law and taxes. Most states come down hard on drinking and driving.

In my experience people are similar to the parent in both California and Massachusetts.

I think it depends on which law you are talking about. Airport immigration authorities in texas are a lot worse than SF i've found.

That is federal law, not state law. Border states are always more harsh on immigration rules than non-border states (though Portland's Japanese nickname before 9/11 used to be Deportland).

Texas is not realy the USA...

An attractive sentiment in general, but it's not true. Texas is just like every other state, in that they spend way too much on the "enforcement" of drunk-driving laws. The reason is obvious: local police and sheriffs get the same ridiculous federal grants that LEOs in all other states get.

EDIT: Congratulations to Louisiana, I expect they laugh at Texas' patchwork of dry and "partially-moist" counties.

Louisiana back in the 80s/early 90s had very lax drinking laws: the drinking age was 18 and they had "drive thru" daiquiri stores. I think they gave that up for highway money, but the culture still hangs around.

In contrast, many states in the north are now zero tolerance states. The limit is quite low, and the penalties are quite harsh. Well, that pales in comparison to Japan, where you would probably lose your job if caught (and they have a very low limit also).

Indeed, Louisiana still has drive thru daiquiri places. They just put a piece of tape over the straw hole in the lid as they hand it to you.

Texting (and talking on phone) while driving are still legal in Texas. Texas road deaths are double the OECD average.

Canada and the United States, while similar, are not culturally the same.

Children in the States, because they are already breaking the law by drinking, routinely get behind the wheel without thinking about it. They get home safely and learn that it's ok to drink and drive.

In the US, we have a combination of a binge drinking culture, a driving culture and a fierce independence from authority. The combination isn't the best for deterring drinking and driving.

Here's a simple reason laws don't work as well as you'd think: when you drink and drive, you're not in your right mind. You're less inhibited than you would be otherwise and often you think you're fine to drive. Without sober or semi-sober friends around, there's nothing stopping you from doing just that.

I don't think you can reliably compare things on one variable like this. A counter-comparison that reaches an opposite conclusion: Here in Denmark the sentences for drunk driving are considerably lower than in the US, rarely involving prison time. And yet drunk driving is less common. Typically the punishment is suspension of license and a fine, with the duration of suspension, and the amount of fine, increasing with higher BAC and with repeated offenses. The focus is on removing people from the roads (by suspending their license, possibly for multi-year periods), but not imprisoning them. In extreme cases (BAC >0.2%, repeated offenses, etc.), prison sentences of 20–40 days may be imposed, but rarely more.

Details [Google Translate]: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

You can do your part by reporting each incident that you can. Call 911 and give them the make and model, license plate number, starting location, and likely direction of travel for each drunk driver that you can.

Harsh sentances for murderers also very likely do not prevent murder. But they do keep known murderers in places where the exposure to potential victims is much lower. By doing so, we have a safer world even if we do not have a significant disincentive to commit murder.

And now you know why the US houses most of the world's prisoners [0]. This is the same thinking that brings the US security theater at its airports. Anything for safety, even if it only mariginally works.

[0] https://www.aclu.org/safe-communities-fair-sentences/prison-...

We aren't the worlds largest jailor because we put murderers in jail. We are because we have made jailable crimes out of benign actions that do not harm other people. Drunk driving is not a benign action that does not hurt other people.

Who's talking about prison? Driving is a privilege. Suspending it, possibly forever, doesn't appraoch custodial sentences.

How does one enforce such a suspension, without resorting to prison? (I suspect someone will mention "fines/monetary penalties", but that's rather begging the question.)

Taking away the driver's license is how it is enforced, I think. So if you are stopped, you get a ticket/arrested for driving without a valid license.

Yes, and when you don't pay your fine and drive without a license, and society decides it cares because children, you go to prison. This is what I meant. Now you're in prison, the overall rate of drunk driving is unaffected, and America is still the prison champion of the history of Earth, which was the point of the thread.

If the laws are on the books and applied in a non-arbitrary way the perception of DUI might change - after all you want people to be sober behind the wheel even when the police aren't looking. Unfortunately, in the US, you can't breathalyze everyone on a Saturday night, you have to have "reasonable suspicion". Which means that on weekends, the roads are less safe than they could be, I avoid driving on the weekend after dark.

Sobriety checkpoints without reasonable suspicion were ruled by the Supreme Court to not violate the 4th amendment, and only ten states have prohibited such checkpoints.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_checkpoint#Legality_in_t...

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