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Convicted NY Drunk Drivers Need Ignition Interlocks
pickens writes "Starting yesterday in New York state, anyone sentenced for felony or misdemeanor DWI, whether a first-time or repeat offender, will have to install an ignition interlock in any vehicle they own or operate. The interlock contains a breath-checking unit that keeps the car from starting if the offender's blood-alcohol level registers 0.025 or higher, a little less than one-third of the legal limit. 'The addition of ignition interlocks will save lives in New York state,' says State Probation Director Robert Maccarone, who led the team that wrote the regulation. 'It's been proven in other states. New Mexico realized a 37 percent reduction in DWI recidivism.' Whether that will be enough to persuade more people to take a cab or find a designated driver is unknown. 'It's one more thing to make people think, it may help — it may keep a few people from getting behind the wheel,' says Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh."
is one thing that bothers me. $70-125 to install and another $70-110 per month isn't cheap, especially on top of the major bump in car insurance that they already ate. Given that drunk driving convictions skew to lower income, this has real potential to put even first-time offenders into bankruptcy.
The fact that it triggers on as little as 1/3 of the legal limit is also troubling. Maybe they should trigger at slightly below the legal limit, but 1/3? They couldn't get convicted of a DWI at that number, and yet you're going to shut off their car?
I'm just waiting for the day when the "reenact prohibition" assholes get enough power to try to make these things mandatory in all cars. After all, if it "saves lives", why not make everyone blow into the damn box to start the car, and at random times?
Insert obligatory "won't someone think of the children" bullcrap here too.
and what's wrong with that? it needs to be a pain in the ass, that's the whole point.
weinersmith
I assume to thwart the "come blow in this thing for me so I can start my car" loophole...
Who feels that is their right these days? I've never heard someone say "it's my right to drink and drive".
.08 to .05 soon. Just try arguing against that. If you do, you're immediately regarded as an advocate for drinking and driving, rather than an advocate for moderation. Even if the subject is brought up among my friends, all of whom enjoy their beer, there's little to no indignation on their part, or a feeling that their rights are being taken away. The consensus is "well, guess we shouldn't be drinking and driving anyways." Never mind that the new limit will only punish moderates rather than the truly incapacitated that were already targeted under the previous limit.
Actually, the opposite is usually true. Here in BC the legal limit will be dropping from
In the end, I don't really care either - I'm just a little miffed MADD continues to push the laws towards their prohibitionist ideals and there's nothing you can do about it without looking like a drunk.
. where do we draw the line?
Every time you get into a car drunk and endanger other innocent people on the road. Exactly how many times am I supposed to let your old girlfriend try to kill me and/or my family before we crack down?
#1 first offense doesn't mean the first time the person did it, only the first time they got caught
#2 you can still kill somebody the first time you drink and drive, it's not like the first time you do there's a magical force field protecting you/the pedestrian or something
#3 it's not that hard: if you drink YOU DO NOT DRIVE, period. take a cab, take transit, have a designated driver, you name it, risking other people's lives because you are too cheap to take a cab is ridiculous, you had the money to buy drinks, you should have the money to get home without endangering others.
From my perspective there is no line to draw, first time 5 years w/o a license, second time lose your license forever, period.
-- the cake is a lie
But you know what's really gone unchecked? Texting while driving is as bad or worse than drinking and driving [cnbc.com].
And therefore we should be softer on drunk drivers.
Yes, that logic is truly brilliant. Well done!
Ahahahahahahahaha this is hilarious.
I mean, honestly, I hate the draconian nature of this, and would rather live with the consequences of not having these than have police-state laws like this, but...
Two of my idiot friends got their second DWIs recently. One of them recently enough that he's almost certainly going to have to put one of these things in, and I hope the other one as well. The less recent one rear-ended a stopped car at a traffic light--no one was injured, but he's still driving around his brand new car (brand new because he had a girl drive drunk while he was drunk and she smashed into a telephone pole... that one was new too) with a smashed up front end. He's probably been sentenced already, although tbh I don't talk to him much anymore because he's self-destructing in other spectacular ways that I don't want to be around. The more recent one went off the road and broke both his arms, almost died. He put off his court date for a month, GOD I hope he has to put this thing in.
So, as much as I don't like them ... people will drive drunk. Over and over again, for no fucking reason. I was out with one of the two a couple months before all this, at a bar. I drove down with the plan to leave the car in the public lot and get a $10 ticket, then take a cab back home and a friend would drive me to my car in the morning. Well, closing time came around and this moron asked me to drive because it was kind of cold and he didn't want to wait a half hour for the cab to get there. I said no, so he, already with one DWI and drunk (but not drunk enough that he should have that poor of decision making ability), offered to drive my car. I said fuck no, and we waited, but the whole time he hounded me about it. It's just unfathomable how stupid people get about this, and they make the decisions drunk or sober. For instance, I drove down, but only because I know myself well enough to know that I'm not going to do something stupid once I get a buzz on. Other people, as you can see by reading this thread, will do anything they can to drive drunk, like leaving their cars running outside a bar. It's fucking insane, like straight up some kind of mental imbalance. Hell, I've stopped going to bars more than once every few months because it's such a pain in the ass and I can't see any reasonable explanation for anyone doing otherwise short of being broken in the head somehow.
So yeah, it sucks, but you won't hear me bitching about the law. No, I'll be laughing as these dipshits blow their car started at the order of some beeping box, and watching with interest to see what kind of backflips they'll do to fuck their own and other people's lives up even more, for NO REASON. Addicted to alcohol? Go to the grocery store, and drink for a quarter of the price! Throw a party at your house, sleep over at others' houses when you drink there, get a motel room if you're out of town and have nowhere else to sleep. D-d-d-don't drink so fucking much! It's the sober guy that gets laid at the after-party anyway. Jesus.
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NATO is probably a better example ;)
Sent from my PDP-11
This isn't the general public you know. We're talking about convicted criminals who actually drove on public roads while actually drunk. Likely more than once, since they're only convicted if they're caught.
I'm all for liberty and etc, but I have exactly zero patience for letting anyone that's been anywhere near alcohol drive next to me at 70mph. Driving isn't something to mess around with, you can go out to get some milk one day and never come back.
What will happen when you have one drink, get popped, and you discover that the limits are now so low that YOU are the one having to install one of these? Will you be so high and mighty then? Why not just set the limits to zero and be done with it? Drinking and driving is bad mmkay? But at some point we're going to hit bottom in this little political race to outdo one another and realize that it's a bit insane.
How about this, lets just install them in ALL cars? That will stop this problem cold won't it? See how that flies at the local bar and grill or winery why don't you. If the device detects any alcohol in your system it won't start. You okay with that? Family will be safe right? If you say no then are you advocating drinking and driving?
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Every time you drive, you endanger other people's lives - it's a matter of degree. Life just isn't supposed to be safe. Yes, yes, you can go too far, and reckless endangerment should be stopped, but not at any cost. We have a shocking tendency in America recently to give up any liberty asked for in return for the slightest sense of security. Does this law go too far? I'm not sure. But if you can't admit it's possible to go too far, you're helping invent the new safety-based fascism we seem destined for.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The problem isn't that people go to the bar, drink themselves sloppy, and crawl to the car amidst warnings not to drive, then zig-zag down the road (yeah, some are that bad, most aren't).
The problem is someone who has a couple drinks talks for a while, feels fine and ends up one hundredth over the limit 15 minutes later and they would be just under the limit. Had the machine been calibrated perfectly they might have been under. Truthfully, they probably were fine to drive (and better fit for it than some other people on the road) and wouldn't have been pulled over except for the roadblock, but the law is the law (and no, I have never gotten a DUI). With the legal limit creeping downward, that scenario becomes more common.
Zero tolerance is almost inevitably the wrong answer.
I agree that people who give up liberty for little (general immeasurable amount of) safety need to fuck off and die. That isn't the issue here. If you get hit with a DUI, you committed a criminal act. It wasn't your own life you were endangering. This isn't a victim less drug law. You were doing something horribly dangerous to the people around you. You should damn well be punished, and punished harshly enough so that you don't do it again. A DUI isn't a victim less crime. I am all for drunkenness, just not while you are plowing around with enough kinetic energy to tear a family surrounded by a steel cage apart.
So now we come to punishment. We could toss a DUI's ass in jail, and I am all for that for repeat offenders or people who were grossly negligent. A lesser punishment than having your liberty completely stripped with jail time is to have to get one of these things put into your car. Eh, this isn't a liberty thing. Your liberty is already fucked once you get nailed with a DUI. The question is just how much liberty is going to be stripped. An annoying breathalyser is a much lesser punishment than sitting in a jail cell. I am a no holds bar, drugs for everyone, fuck worrying about terrorist, screw the children, smok'em if you get 'em, have sex often, drink and be merry sort of guy, but I am still all for these things for convicted DUIs.