A driver who drank before he drives does not necessary mean that he is a drunk driver ("drunk" always means the person is not able to control his body). As we all agree, alcohol's effect is different to different person. This should not be the government who act as a "parent" to tell a person what is the alcohol limit for him. This should be the responsibility of the person himself who drinks to judge if he could still control a killing machine after drinking. And certainly, this is also the full responsibility of that person if anything occurs under his control. The incident should not be taken as an accident, instead it should be taken as an irresponsible act of the driver. And the same should apply to the judgment of "tiredness" or condition of the body to operate dangerous machinery.
In view of that, always putting the emphasis "it is wrong to drive after drinking" is just trying to reverse the "results" to the "reasons" and is misleading. Causing the vehicle incidents is not the alcohol but instead it is the driver. Although it seems the percentage of car accidents associating with drank driver is higher (government never publish other car accidents with reckless driver who does not drink), the argument rests on a fundamental confusion of correlation and causality.
In addition, the wrong assumption that every driver who drinks is drunk, will only make more people neglect their liability. Especially when people find out that it is not really the case when they experiment it with drinking a little bit excessive and then drive cautiously back home would not cause any trouble and may be even safer than as usual. Then, people tend not to behave according to the piece of advice as it is overstated and is not representing the truth.
Moreover, the existing and new regulation prosecutes driving after drinking is an unfair rule. This sacrifice the basis ideology of common law: that is "Presume Innocent". It pre-judged all drivers with certain amount of alcohol in blood will not be able to control the vehicle well.
The regulation is only for the "convenience of law executor and legislator". It is as ridiculous as making a regulation to ban the use of knives because they could be used to kill or hurt people. The easiest way for the law executors is to keep this "weapon" away from the access of all people. But will this really reduce murder or assault cases? Is assault cases are caused by the knifes or by the person who want to attack?
So then, what should be the solution? One way to do it is tried to take out those drivers that seems not very much could control themselves from the road. It could be judged by their track records. It could also be determined by the driver’s attitude on the road. Many people should have come across those drivers who drive their car like in the racing track. Maybe their car speed is not exceeding the limit and the driver is not even drinking anything, but those drivers show no courtesy to other users of the road. I am not saying it is easy to make a case against those drivers, but it is worth doing. With the reason in mind that, if police spent more time to take those drivers out from the road, then number of fatal accidents would certainly be reduced. But the work load for the police will surely increase a lot and that the police are certainly not favor this practice.
Another way is to Increase the penalty (especially prohibit the driver causing the incident from using the road for a longer period of time) of causing the incident because of drinking, fatigue, taking medicine before driving as well as those drivers who are reckless, losing temper easily, taking driving as a racing game would certainly help. The penalty in some cases should even cost as high as a life for a life. The penalty is not for the alcohol (nor for the fatigue, nor for the medicine) that the driver took but for the wrong attitude toward driving, the selfish negligence of using a killing machine (i.e. a vehicle) with poor judgment of his own capability. This kind of drivers should be taken out from the road long before they involve in a vehicle incident.
Unless most of those drivers who do not realize a vehicle is actually a killing machine are removed from the road, just escalating the control of driver’s alcohol limit in the blood is just like a cat chasing its own tail and will never able to reduce fatal vehicle incidents. Citizens will only depend more on the judgment of the government and try their best to escape from the liability of their behavior when being caught. This is not the society we would like to live in, right? After all, we should admit that not every driver pass the driving test is "qualify" to share the road with other people no matter that particular driver is drunk or not.
Recommended readings:
- Drinking-Driving Law Enforcement in France from 1973 to 1993: Backgrounds, Trends and Evolution - Marie-Chantal Jayet
- What Europe can learn from US policies on drinking and driving
Position well argued. To extend your argument to other areas, like work place, it is really about ethics and character, which is, from the legal point of view, very difficult to enforce. That is exactly why Victor Hugo was in despair. In his "Les Miserable", the, those who survice are "rat robbers and dog thieves" - People without heart or virtues.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if we refocus again to the drunk driver case, your suggestion of penalty might work.
Florence