Why do some countries have stricter penalties for drunk drivers than the US?

[cristo]

So believe me, the sentences are fairly severe.

As well they should be. I have absolutely no time for people who drink and then drive: even if it's "just a couple."

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

As well they should be. I have absolutely no time for people who drink and then drive: even if it's "just a couple."

And even if their ability to drive is not impaired?

 

[Evo]

Edit: Does this link work better? http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/74000373/abstract?

Yes, thank you!

 

[Moonbear]

No it isn't. That's why we have a non-zero BAC for drunk driving laws.

No, that actually has more to do with the limitations of the accuracy and sensitivity of the testing equipment or blood tests.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

No, that actually has more to do with the limitations of the accuracy and sensitivity of the testing equipment or blood tests.

Limit here is .08%. Differences in sentences are based on as little as a .01% difference.

 

[cristo]

And even if their ability to drive is not impaired?

Define "impaired". Just because someone isn't swerving around the road, or hitting stop signs doesn't mean their judgement isn't impaired. When driving a car, the slightest split second in reaction time can be the difference between life and death (for other people on the road: I'm not talking about the driver). Show me proof that the slightest amount of alcohol has absolutely no affect on the reaction times of 100% of drivers, and then I'm willing to believe it.

Sorry, but if you want to drink, get a cab, or have one of your friends drive you or pick you up. Otherwise, drink soft drinks.

 

[Evo]

Earlier this year I left a bar a bit earlier thannormal because my friend was not feeling well. I felt fine and didn't think I was over the limit. I was pulled over for my registration tags (forgot to put the new ones on). I was not speeding, swerving, running lights, or any other dangerous thing. I gave them everything they wanted. When they saw how drunk my friend was they asked if I had been drinking. I said I had a couple of drinks over about three hours. They got me out of the car and had me do the field test, which I passed. They then had me do a breathalizer. I was over by .01%.

I spent the night in jail. My license is suspended for three years. I paid two grand in fines. I have to go through a DUI program that will cost me about $500 more.

Wow, sorry to hear that SA. I knew that DUI was getting more severe, but I had no idea how severe some states were.

My best friend got a DUI 10 years ago for a blood alcohol level of .08. She was about 3 miles from the state line where the legal limit was 1.0, another 3 miles and she would have been well under the legal limit. She hardly ever drinks, she had been to a wedding. After I saw what she had to go through, I will not risk even one drink if I am driving. Back then the suspension was only 1 year for a first offence.

 

[rootX]

No one yet talked about insurance?

I think the best solution is to keep on increasing the insurance.

 

[quadraphonics]

Yes it did, 33% of the drivers were on marijuana only.

I don't see that in the information. It says 33% tested positive for marijuana, and 12% tested positive for marijuana and cocaine. The word "only" is not used. We are not told if those are two separate groups, or whether any of the drivers in question tested positive for alcohol or other drugs. And, again, there is a potentially enormous difference between testing positive for marijuana and being "on" marijuana. From your own at the end of the quoted post:

"Interpretation of Urine Test Results: Detection of total THC metabolites in urine, primarily THC-COOH-glucuronide, only indicates prior THC exposure. Detection time is well past the window of intoxication and impairment. Published excretion data from controlled clinical studies may provide a reference for evaluating urine cannabinoid concentrations; however, these data are generally reflective of occasional marijuana use rather than heavy, chronic marijuana exposure. "

Also from the same link:

"Effects on Driving: The drug manufacturer suggests that patients receiving treatment with Marinol® should be specifically warned not to drive until it is established that they are able to tolerate the drug and perform such tasks safely."

Note that no alcohol manufacturer could get away with labelling a bottle of whiskey with "users should not drive until it is established that they are able to tolerate the drug and perform such tasks safely."

For those of you that missed it, I have never said that marijuana doesn't impair driving ability, only that said impairment is not comparable to being drunk, and should not be treated as such. Studies showing that marijuana causes comparable impairment to blood alcohol levels that are well within legal limits for driving do not go far in refuting this.

 

[binzing]

There's people here (predominantly Native American) that have upwards of 50 DUIs and don't give a damn, they just keep doing it...

 

[quadraphonics]

No, that actually has more to do with the limitations of the accuracy and sensitivity of the testing equipment or blood tests.

If you say so. Regardless, criminal codes throughout the world show a clear trend of increasing penalty with increasing impairment, reflected the increased risk associated with increased impairment. Do you really want to support the assertion that all impairments are morally equal, regardless of severity?

Here's a PowerPoint summary of a large EU study on the effects of different drugs and alcohol, both alone and in combination:

http://www.immortal.or.at/public_downloads/Drug_drinkdriving_Brussels.ppt#282,11,Odds ratios and prevalence data of alcohol-only

Note that they find marijuana to show only a slight danger, less than low doses of alcohol, and drastically less than doses of alcohol which would put you over the legal limit.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Define "impaired". Just because someone isn't swerving around the road, or hitting stop signs doesn't mean their judgement isn't impaired. When driving a car, the slightest split second in reaction time can be the difference between life and death (for other people on the road: I'm not talking about the driver). Show me proof that the slightest amount of alcohol has absolutely no affect on the reaction times of 100% of drivers, and then I'm willing to believe it.

Sorry, but if you want to drink, get a cab, or have one of your friends drive you or pick you up. Otherwise, drink soft drinks.

In my case I was driving fine and passed a field sobriety test but was over the limit. Is BAC a measure of impairment?
I've rarely driven when drinking. I usually wait and shoot some pool for a while to sober up first. While not drinking much to begin with.
I'm not mad or looking for a fight here. I respect your opinion. I'm just giving you the opinion of someone who's going through this for no other reason than .01% difference in a measurement. So maybe I'm just going to be an egg broke to make an omlette. I can (and have to) live with that. I'm just wondering how many people have an even harder time of it in a similar situation. Fortunately I have no kids or anything and my employers are rather sympathetic and forgiving.

Wow, sorry to hear that SA. I knew that DUI was getting more severe, but I had no idea how severe some states were.

My best friend got a DUI 10 years ago for a blood alcohol level of .08. She was about 3 miles from the state line where the legal limit was 1.0, another 3 miles and she would have been well under the legal limit. She hardly ever drinks, she had been to a wedding. After I saw what she had to go through, I will not risk even one drink if I am driving. Back then the suspension was only 1 year for a first offence.

It's no fun. But I'll live. Hopefully if I go to jail it won't be as bad as I have heard. I'm not sure how I would fair having to deal with neonazis. I'd probably want to punch their teeth in.


I just remembered by the way, back to the OP and severity of DUI sentences.
L.A. is cracking down on repeat offenders. They have a special taskforce now that actually go so far as to follow offenders around to see if they are abiding by their sentences. I heard a few cases noted where they picked people up getting into their car after being in the courthouse with a BAC of .2% or higher. Scary people.

 

[MeJennifer]

Talking about impairment, is it true that fighter pilots in the US army get amphetamines ?

 

[quadraphonics]

In my case I was driving fine and passed a field sobriety test but was over the limit. Is BAC a measure of impairment?

No, but the law has a "presumptive rebuttal" clause (at least I think that's what it's called) that let's them presume that you were in fact impaired if your BAC was above a certain threshold, regardless of whether they can demonstrate any actual impairment. Every few years you hear a story on the news about an alcoholic that is easily able to pass a sobriety test, due to the tolerance he's acquired over the years, but then turns out to have some outrageous BAC that would kill a normal person.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

No, but the law has a "presumptive rebuttal" clause (at least I think that's what it's called) that let's them presume that you were in fact impaired if your BAC was above a certain threshold, regardless of whether they can demonstrate any actual impairment. Every few years you hear a story on the news about an alcoholic that is easily able to pass a sobriety test, due to the tolerance he's acquired over the years, but then turns out to have some outrageous BAC that would kill a normal person.

Yes, I've heard of such things. The Sheriffs told me that they decided to breathalize me anyway because had I later that night gotten into an accident and shown over the limit they would have been held responsible.

 

[tribdog]

Yes, I've heard of such things. The Sheriffs told me that they decided to breathalize me anyway because had I later that night gotten into an accident and shown over the limit they would have been held responsible.

and you believed them? they breathalized you because they wanted to arrest you for DUI. Around here we are starting to get a lot of DUI checkpoints, every single car gets pulled over and if they have any suspicion that you may have had something to drink they direct you a mobile trailer with a breathalyzer. I'm against drunk driving, but the scary thing is how easy it can be to technically be guilty. Go out to dinner, have a couple of drinks and while you aren't drunk and would probably drive home just fine, if you are unlucky you could end up with a DUI. Every one of us has probably driven when they had a BAC of .08, which is the limit here.

 

[binzing]

Talking about impairment, is it true that fighter pilots in the US army get amphetamines ?

I don't think so anymore, but during WWII it was widely used.

 

[Cyrus]

What's really stupid to me is the fact that unless you get pulled over, you have no clue how many drinks it takes for you to become over the limit. This is information everyone should know. Is it one beer, two beers?

If I have two beers, how long do I have to wait?

Being arrested for having a beer or two with their meal is flat out moronic. The cops should find something better to do with their time. Like cleaning up the ghettos. The only reason they care about DWI/DUI is because they can fine your *** to now tomorrow.

I bet if there was no fine, only jail time, the cops wouldn't care because they would have full prisons and no money to pay for anything.

 

[quadraphonics]

What's really stupid to me is the fact that unless you get pulled over, you have no clue how many drinks it takes for you to become over the limit. This is information everyone should know. Is it one beer, two beers?

Where I grew up, the cops would occasionally send an on-duty officer to the local bars with a breathalyzer, so that people could use it to get an idea of how much effect a given amount of drinking would have on their BAC. I think the idea is that a lot of drunk driving occurs in situations where people develop a habit of drinking and then driving (while still under the limit), but over time their comfort level and alcohol intake starts to creep up. So you want to give them some feedback *before* they actually get up to the point of driving drunk.

Probably in larger, less fortunate cities they do not have the spare resources to do this, though.

 

[lisab]

What's really stupid to me is the fact that unless you get pulled over, you have no clue how many drinks it takes for you to become over the limit. This is information everyone should know. Is it one beer, two beers?

Ha, Cyrus, you're looking at it through engineer's eyes. To control a variable, you have to be able to measure it...how can you be under a target that you can't measure?

 

[Cyrus]

Ha, Cyrus, you're looking at it through engineer's eyes. To control a variable, you have to be able to measure it...how can you be under a target that you can't measure?

What do you mean? I thought the thing will measure a lower bounded threshold. Meaning, it can measure to say 0.005% BAC, but 0.02% is illegal.

 

[tribdog]

blood alcohol is almost completely dependent on body weight I think. Impairment is much more subjective though.

 

[LightbulbSun]

blood alcohol is almost completely dependent on body weight

That's correct. The lower the body weight, the less alcohol you need to consume to have a high BAC reading.

 

[lisab]

What do you mean? I thought the thing will measure a lower bounded threshold. Meaning, it can measure to say 0.005% BAC, but 0.02% is illegal.

The drinker controls the number of drinks they imbibe; the breathalyzer measures alcohol in the blood. There is no way an average person can know exactly how the number of drinks affects BAC.

 

[tribdog]

The drinker controls the number of drinks they imbibe; the breathalyzer measures alcohol in the blood. There is no way an average person can know exactly how the number of drinks affects BAC.

I thought there was a pretty straight forward equation to figure out your bac pretty accurately.

 

[Gokul43201]

In my case I was driving fine and passed a field sobriety test but was over the limit. Is BAC a measure of impairment?

Here... you decide.

Logan B K; Distefano S, "Ethanol content of various foods and soft drinks and their potential for interference with a breath-alcohol test", Journal of Analytical Toxicology 22 (1998).

Abstract:

A variety of breads and soft drinks were tested and found to contain low concentrations of alcohol. The potential for these products to generate false readings on an evidential breath-alcohol instrument was evaluated. Alcohol-free subjects ingested these products and then provided breath samples into a DataMaster. It was found that breath samples provided immediately after consumption of some of these products, or with them still present in the mouth, did produce low levels of apparent breath alcohol, which may or may not be rejected as invalid by the breath-test instrument. If the subject swallowed or expectorated the food or beverage and then observed a 15-min deprivation period during which nothing was introduced into the mouth, the apparent effect was eliminated. These findings emphasize the need for the mandatory pretest alcohol-deprivation period and the benefits of duplicate breath sampling.

How long after you left the bar before you took the breathalyzer test?

I'm just giving you the opinion of someone who's going through this for no other reason than .01% difference in a measurement.

Did you ask to check the calibration of the meter? Did you take just one test or more than one? How many? Have you subsequently taken blood tests to establish you breath to blood partition ratio? Have you talked to a lawyer about any of this? My own opinion is that a 0.03% margin on a blood alcohol test by a single breathalyzer measurement is almost meaningless, but the law may be such that this margin is already accounted for in the legal limit.

Here's a paper on the systematic error bar on breath tests:

Gullberg Rod G; Logan Barry K "Results of a proposed breath alcohol proficiency test program" Journal of forensic sciences 51 (2006)

Abstract:

Although proficiency test programs have long been used in both clinical and forensic laboratories, they have not found uniform application in forensic breath alcohol programs. An initial effort to develop a proficiency test program appropriate to forensic breath alcohol analysis is described herein. A total of 11 jurisdictions participated in which 27 modern instruments were evaluated. Five wet bath simulator solutions with ethanol vapor concentrations ranging from 0.0254 to 0.2659 g/210 L were sent to participating programs, instructing them to perform n = 10 measurements on each solution using the same instrument. Four of the solutions contained ethanol only and one contained ethanol mixed with acetone. The systematic errors for all instruments ranged from -11.3% to +11.4% while the coefficient of variations ranged from zero to 6.1%. A components-of-variance analysis revealed at least 79% of the total variance as being due to the between-instrument component for all concentrations. Improving proficiency test program development should consider: (1) clear protocol instructions, (2) frequency of proficiency testing, (3) use lower concentrations for determining limits-of-detection and -quantitation, etc. Despite the lack of a biological component, proficiency test participation should enhance the credibility of forensic breath test programs.

And if you measured 0.01% over in a measurement of 0.09%, that's 11.1% over the legal limit. A second measurement or a different instrument may just as easily have read 0.08%.

 

[lisab]

I thought there was a pretty straight forward equation to figure out your bac pretty accurately.

Oh, yes, I'm sure there is. But does the average citizen know that equation? I could probably find it, but not when I'm out drinking with a bunch of friends.

That's (I believe) the point of Cyrus's post: how can the citizen know when they are breaking the law?

 

[Cyrus]

The drinker controls the number of drinks they imbibe; the breathalyzer measures alcohol in the blood. There is no way an average person can know exactly how the number of drinks affects BAC.

Huh? I drink a beer, I take the test. An hour later I go back and take the test again to see how much it went down. Repeat with two beers. Repeat with three beers. Ok now I've gone over the limit. Test over. I can drink three beers before I'm illegal, and I have to wait an hour and a half before I can drive again.

 

[rootX]

Huh? I drink a beer, I take the test. An hour later I go back and take the test again to see how much it went down. Repeat with two beers. Repeat with three beers. Ok now I've gone over the limit. Test over. I can drink three beers before I'm illegal, and I have to wait an hour and a half before I can drive again.

Most people drink at night time. So, why don't just wait for the morning
Drink whatever and wait for 8 hours.

 

[Cyrus]

Most people drink at night time. So, why don't just wait for the morning

What?

 

[rootX]

What?

I don't see the point why one should think about driving (or even doing anything) after drinking?
If you are thinking about drinking outside [which shouldn't be every day], you should rather use bus/a cab/friend who is not planning to drink at all.

 

[Cyrus]

I don't see the point why one should think about driving (or even doing anything) after drinking?
If you are thinking about drinking outside [which shouldn't be every day], you should rather use bus/a cab/friend who is not planning to drink at all.

Because drinking one beer or two beers doesn't do anything to the majority of people out there, and to give them a ticket for having a beer (or two) with their food is beyond stupid.

If you're going to make drinking and driving a big deal, then have a sensible limit to what's considered dangerous.

Have you ever had a beer in your life?


Just because some family gets killed on their way home by a guy who is PLASTERED, does not mean a person who had one or two beers is a threat to anyone. In fact, its a joke. But I am sure all the PD's make a TONNNNN of money arresting people who had two beers. Keeping the street safe, my a**. Imagine how much money they make from one arrest. Court fees, points, biggggggg ticket. If you take that away they are going to have to pull over a lot more people to make up for that lost revenue.

 

[Gokul43201]

The drinker controls the number of drinks they imbibe; the breathalyzer measures alcohol in the blood. There is no way an average person can know exactly how the number of drinks affects BAC.

Actually, the breathalyzer does not measure alcohol in the blood.

1. The breathalyzer measures alcohol content in the breath. (And will often mistake acetone, and some methyl and ethyl compounds as "alcohol", but let's ignore that.)

2. The average human being has a ratio of blood alcohol to breath alcohol of 2100 (the partition ratio). The measured standard deviation on this number is about 250 so there's a 15% likelihood that any person will have a partition ratio smaller than 1850. Partition ratios as low as 1500 are not particularly rare.

3. The breathalizer assumes you are an "average person" and multiplies the breath alcohol content by 2100. If your partition ratio happens to be only 1400, the breathalyzer will give a reading that is 50% too high. On a person with an 1850 partition ratio, the perfect breathalizer will read 0.09% on a subject with a 0.08% BAC level.

 

[Cyrus]

Actually, the breathalyzer does not measure alcohol in the blood.

1. The breathalyzer measures alcohol content in the breath. (And will often mistake acetone, and some methyl and ethyl compounds as "alcohol", but let's ignore that.)

2. The average human being has a ratio of blood alcohol to breath alcohol of 2100 (the partition ratio). The measured standard deviation on this number is about 250 so there's a 15% likelihood that any person will have a partition ratio smaller than 1850. Partition ratios as low as 1500 are not particularly rare.

3. The breathalizer assumes you are an "average person" and multiplies the breath alcohol content by 2100. If your partition ratio happens to be only 1400, the breathalyzer will give a reading that is 50% too high. On a person with an 1850 partition ratio, the perfect breathalizer will read 0.09% on a subject with a 0.08% BAC level.

The police should just give you a series of tests that demonstrate you have full abilities to drive the rest of your way home. If you are fully aware of what's going on and can demonstrate some tests of reaction time, you should be able to drive.

Simply saying, "oh, your 0.02%, jail time" - is pathetic.

 

[rootX]

Because drinking one beer or two beers doesn't do anything to the majority of people out there, and to give them a ticket for having a beer (or two) with their food is beyond stupid.

IMO it doesn't look civil to drink during daytime (or planning to do any task after drinking).

Have you ever had a beer in your life?

nopes and I am not planning to drink at all in near/far future.

Just because some family gets killed on their way home by a guy who is PLASTERED, does not mean a person who had one or two beers is a threat to anyone. In fact, its a joke. But I am sure all the PD's make a TONNNNN of money arresting people who had two beers. Keeping the street safe, my a**. Imagine how much money they make from one arrest. Court fees, points, biggggggg ticket. If you take that away they are going to have to pull over a lot more people to make up for that lost revenue.

To me, human life costs far more than million dollars. So, it is best to avoid those circumstances before hand. It is better to spend some thousands to save lives (which are worth far more).