Agreed on the whole driving bit - but commensurately, whenever I'm in the US, I am astonished by how casually people drink and drive.
Don't think it's a stoner problem, more an inconsiderate dickhead/cultural problem.
Don't think it's a stoner problem, more an inconsiderate dickhead/cultural problem.
I'm of a mind that its actually way too easy to obtain a drivers license in this country. For example; my mother took my uncle to get his drivers license renewed. Why she did is beyond me because he has early stage dementia. He couldn't understand the written test so the lady at the DMV just had my mom fill it out for him! Not even our own government cares whether we're qualified to drive!
Is this supported by any research? Road traffic accident statistics show too many young people. So, older people might be safer drivers.
Of course, there are a few people with dementia or visual impairment who shouldn't be driving but it's interesting that it's ok to suggest that older people are risky drivers when that doesn't appear to be true.
https://aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/OlderDriverRis...
They drive fewer miles, but even still their far more risky than teenagers. "The per-driver death rate of target drivers aged 85 and older is nearly double that of target drivers aged 16 to 17 (Rate Ratio [RR] 1.93, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.66–2.24) and is over six times that of drivers aged 50 to 59 (RR 6.25, CI 5.48–7.14)."
Also of note, new drivers of any age are generally more risky than experienced ones of that same age. So, a large chunk of the teenage hit would happen even if you banned people <20 from driving.
"For example, the results of this study suggest that if a randomly-selected driver in his or thirties and a randomly-selected driver aged 85 or older were to drive equal numbers of miles, the older driver would be over 1500% more likely than the younger driver to be responsible for and die as a result of a crash, and about 220% more likely than the younger driver to kill an occupant of another vehicle or a non-motorist.
However, drivers in their thirties drive approximately 217% more miles on average than drivers aged 85 and older do. Without statistical adjustment for what occurs naturally, a randomly-selected driver aged 85 or older is about 720% more likely than a randomly selected driver aged 30 to 39 to die in a crash, but only about 0.8% more likely to kill an occupant of another vehicle or a non-motorist, over the course of a year."
I haven't gone back to review what the author means exactly by "statistical adjustment for what occurs naturally"
However, in the end 85+ year old drivers are simply less safe than 16 year old drivers. The issue is quantifying how much less safe they are.
Ford F-150 had some minor damage to the bumper, the brick wall had major damage for the width of the vehicle (I think any modern pickup would fair similarly).
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/10/teenager...
>but it's interesting that it's ok to suggest that older people are risky drivers when that doesn't appear to be true.
Ageing impairs one's ability to drive. It's not controversial because our bodies break as we age. Everyone knows that.
Maybe we are generally worse compared to other western countries but my experience suggests the prevalence of driving in America puts our skills among the best. If someone has data which suggests otherwise please share.
Contrast this with China - one of the countries that you listed as an example of having bad drivers - where to obtain a license you need to pay the equivalent of a few thousand USD for a rigorous driving course in an isolated area (you can't even drive on the road before you have your license; learner's licenses do not permit you to drive on public roads). After this, you are still under some limitations until a year after you've obtained the license.
In addition to this, the more aggressive driving culture of China involves many more vehicles jostling for smaller spaces than would be the case in America. The skill and spatial awareness of the vehicle necessary to cope with this sort of environment is far greater than that needed to deal with even the most demanding driving environments of America.
We are definitely more laid-back and polite in driving than China (and I would prefer that any day) but more skillful? I highly doubt that.
One day, I lucked out and found street parking near the convention center in Houston. I had to drive forwards then back into the unmarked space, which was obscured from view by the angle. I make sure to leave a good three feet of space from the car behind, and observe that there's space behind that car too. A few hours later, we come back to the car, and there's a woman in the car behind on the phone complaining about being "parked in."
(What's more, if you cranked up the stereotype dial when you imagine the scene, you'd be pretty accurate. No pickup truck, though. It was one of those Chrysler 300 style cars.) [heavy sigh]
EDIT: Contrast the above with what I observed in Sligo, Ireland, taking the bus to see some archaeological site. At this one bus stop on those twisty little roads, the mother and her child getting off the bus had to back up and flatten against the wall while the driver maneuvered out of this one bend in the road. If the driver had been wrong by a foot and a half -- and mind you, this is a full sized city bus -- he would've crushed them against the wall. Apparently, this was a regular occurrence!
i.e. in China, if you're 60 years or older, you need to pass yearly medical exam to show that you're fit to drive.
People from the US I've spoken to often claim this is because in some areas not having a car is pretty unworkable due to a lack of public transport or alternatives. So if driving was revoked then people could get "stranded" at home (e.g. the nearer store is a 10 minute drive away on roads with no sidewalk).
I think if they're unwilling to revoke people's driving, then waste a bunch of their time. People car much more about their time than their money, just force people to take a full day weekend class even on the first offense and make it three weeks worth or more on the second attempt (you can fine them also).
Also, in the US, buses equate to poverty in the minds of many, and that attitude is going to be hard to shift, so... roll on driverless cars?
I don't think punishment will put people off to any great degree. I mean - how many people do you know who have not once lamented the shit they got up to while drink? Rather the problem with impaired judgment...
You're right in that in that for most of the US, not having a vehicle is crippling. Many first-time DUI offenders have their licenses suspended but are allowed work privileges to avoid them losing their job.
Also, in my state, first-time offenders are often sentenced to either spend three days in jail or take a weekend class, so at least in Ohio, they're doing exactly what you're mentioning.
The only serious issue I see with making DUI laws somewhat more strict is knowing whether or not you're too impaired to drive. Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving have successfully lobbied to effectively force States to reduce the blood/alcohol threshold that's often used to distinguish impairment. I really have no idea how many drinks I can have within a given time frame and still know I'm legally not considered drunk. I've heard enough instances where people test right at, or slightly below, the threshold and get arrested and they say they felt their driving wasn't impaired at all. So I am left with no choice other than to arrange other transportation, or drink what I feel is a limited enough to make me not impaired.
This might not be the case in other states, but in California and (I believe) Nevada, even first-time offenses are at least a night in jail and significant penalty points. License revocation is also not unheard of. Classes are pretty common.
Source: former California Highway Patrol employee. I processed a lot of arrest reports for drunk drivers.
The legal limit in most of the US (0.08 BAC) is actually pretty high, so you can legally drink and drive. For example at that level a 220lb man can have four (American 1.5oz) shots and hit the road immediately at ~0.7. So most drinking and driving you might have seen probably isn't (at least legally).
The second main reason is probably because there is no good mass transit. Most other countries either have the local pub you can walk to or some subway you can take - there's no 20min drive to meet somewhere.
If you were to test his blood. Breathalyzers work differently and this guy would not pass one.
Breathalysers pretty much only give largely inaccurate results when you still have alcohol residue in your throat or mouth. If you rinse out or wait a moment, they'll probably fall in line with blood tests.
Where I live, refusing either results in a guilty verdict.
"Consider the 2000 federal law that pressured states to lower their BAC standards to 0.08 from 0.10. At the time, the average BAC in alcohol-related fatal accidents was 0.17, and two-thirds of such accidents involved drivers with BACs of 0.14 or higher."
http://reason.com/archives/2010/10/11/abolish-drunk-driving-...
And at 0.08, you're chance of accident is 393% of that when sober. 0.07 is 322%.[1]
1. http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/nti/pdf/812117-Drug_and_Alc... (Table 8)
There is a central divide in alcohol use and an individual's response to it. Barring young people inexperienced with alcohol (and lacking a fully developed frontal lobe), most people drink a bit, feel tipsy, and then decide that they need to sober up. They're self-aware, responsible, and careful. That's their response to alcohol.
But another segment of people have a completely different response to alcohol. They have a couple of drinks, feel a sense of euphoria, and want to drink and drink and drink some more. These people are alcoholics. They may be very high-functioning — able to hold down a job and all — but they respond both physically and psychologically in a fundamentally different way.
The first group might get behind the wheel, if they judge that they feel alright, and drive home as carefully as they can. The second group — now drunk — will get behind the wheel and drive recklessly, exceeding the speed limit, blasting the radio, taking turns too fast and so forth. The first group might be at BAC 0.05 or 0.08, or even at 0.10, but taking all due precautions. It's not ideal, but it's a far cry from the second group, now at 0.15 or 0.2 or 0.3 (which takes some practice as you know, since unpracticed drunks would be passed out at this BAC), who are now whipping down the road. The first group occasionally has "too much to drink." The second group is blasted every Friday and Saturday night, and sometimes every happy hour.
It's this second group that is causing the lion's share of the tragedies we see on the roadways. The shame of it is that our whole culture has to suffer because of this. A person who is no real threat to his fellows and who may very well be guilty of no other infraction at the time can have his life ruined by over-zealous prosecution.
I think we would do well to reconsider the problem and what we're tying to solve, rather than simply getting MAD(D) about such things and patting ourselves on the back for making things "tougher," year after year.
If the parent commenter was a European who doesn't drive that much and was surprised about how Americans drink and drive, they're usually not aware of how many drinks effect BAC and what the laws are.
Ireland has some of the more dangerous roads in Europe, and yet it's still about half as dangerous as the US, depending on your preferred metric.
I drink pretty frequently, and I go to a lot of effort to never drive drunk. I don't think I've ever met a designated driver in person, but I've met a lot of people who talk about how they drink and drive home drunk anyways. Public transit is mostly nonexistent and unreliable, and most of what there is doesn't run at night. Taxi service is also either nonexistent or may take the better part of an hour outside of major city centers. Walking is also a practical impossibility outside of major city centers. Meanwhile, there are so many people driving a little drunk that you're probably safe enough as long as you aren't the one obviously swerving all over the road.
If we actually care about the issue, why don't we make better alternatives instead of creating a situation where it's painful to not drive drunk, and then act all outraged when people do it.
That said, I've heard that in Japan, it's the bar's responsibility to get you home safely. They take it very seriously, but you pay extra at the club to account for it.
That said, I hadn't considered that possibility. In that case I'd be making plans to be picked up, or I'd be staying in.