This is so level headed and "sober" compared to whatever "think of the children" rhetoric we encounter today, not even for drunk driving specifically but for any kind of trading liberty for safety. I believe we'll retrospectively realize that western society peaked in the 80s and this kind of common sense doesn't dissuade me.
That old article isn't exactly persuasive. It's a pretty long bow to draw from saying (paraphrasing here) that European attitudes to alcohol at the time lead to fewer automobile deaths.
For starters, the number of motor vehicles per person in Europe at the time was much lower, so the roads were a lot less crowded and I would imagine most people who were three sheets to the wind wobbled their way home on a bicycle.
There are just too many people on the roads now to allow the kinds of lax road rules we used to have, and if anything the attitude towards alcohol and binge drinking has made drunk driving far more dangerous for other road users simply due to congestion.
Now we need one in support of making texting while driving a DUI-level offense, with the same penalties.
Texting while driving is arguably worse than drunk driving. Alcohol impairs your judgment, whereas people texting are presumably sober with full faculties and yet decide to endanger and steal from everyone else.
It's not in support of drunk driving, but in support of equal treatment of drivers.
Someone may be (by government standard) "drunk" and drive better than a Tesla on auto-pilot or another person who hasn't tasted alcohol. Yet she can get criminalized.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 24.1 ms ] threadFor starters, the number of motor vehicles per person in Europe at the time was much lower, so the roads were a lot less crowded and I would imagine most people who were three sheets to the wind wobbled their way home on a bicycle.
There are just too many people on the roads now to allow the kinds of lax road rules we used to have, and if anything the attitude towards alcohol and binge drinking has made drunk driving far more dangerous for other road users simply due to congestion.
Texting while driving is arguably worse than drunk driving. Alcohol impairs your judgment, whereas people texting are presumably sober with full faculties and yet decide to endanger and steal from everyone else.
Someone may be (by government standard) "drunk" and drive better than a Tesla on auto-pilot or another person who hasn't tasted alcohol. Yet she can get criminalized.