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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."
New York is just now getting these?
Wow, Alaska has had them for a while now.
Or is there something about this that I'm missing?
Probably the logistics of implementing it in a more populous state.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
First step: get this put in for "DWI convicted" people.
Second step: get them made mandatory in all cars.
The prohibition assholes didn't give up when the 21st Amendment was passed to repeal Prohibition. They just wandered right in with "Blue Laws" and other assholish restrictions such as massive regulation on what alcohol can be imported (did you know you can't get any beer from Wisconsin imported into Texas unless you pass it through a national distributor in some other state like Colorado? Seems Texans are mighty uppity about their shitty-tasting mexican-style swill beers) or at what time of day on what day of the week it can be sold.
The "mandatory minimum 21 drinking age" - so you can fight and die and vote for your country at 18, but don't you dare taste even a drop of beer before 21 - was yet another of their little bits of insanity.
This is simply the next step. The goal is to make it so damn hard to sit down and enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, or a couple beers with your bowling buddies (mmm, beer and Wii Bowling, good times), that prohibition is effectively back in even though it's been repealed.
And you can thank the fucking religious fundamentalists for that.
Second step: jail everyone!
Actually: second step, make the law so goddamn fucking obtuse that you can find some reason, at any time, to jail someone - the age-old phrase "they're always guilty of something."
Then you use the threat of "the law" as a method to make people live in fear. And they do. Most people's first thought after "hey that would be cool" is "nahh, it'd probably break some law." And small wonder huh?
You can ship 500 lbs of potassium nitrate across state lines if you call it fertilizer, but you can't mail 1 small ounce of it in a chemistry kit lest you be charged with "terrorism."
You forgot the word "yet."
I didn't forget it, just omitted it. That's because it's always included in a "Slippery slope" fallacy.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I'd tell you to die in a fire, but you probably will anyway. Just try not to take anybody with you, ok?
So this means you can't drive if you look at a beer? Because .08 is not drunk for anyone but highschool girls.
I hope you guys have lots of public transit.
Inevitable on /. for a complex ethical issues.
Oh wait.
.sig withheld by request
To those in this thread who are complaining about this: sorry but get with the program. I've lost a good friend and a family member to separate DWI incidents (caused by others), along with some asshole illegal alien on his 4th DWI plowing into my car at a red light. Do these things blow? Yes (figuratively and literally), but that's the bloody point. Keep these assholes who are liable to drink again (or in some cases deliberately "game" the system) off the road. Is it intrusive on civil rights? No - because you have no fscking right to drive (show me that in the Constitution)...it's a privilege, which you forfeit if you get drunk and stupid and then go driving. Do mistakes happen and people screw up? Yes. Will the screw up again? Some will...this is the purpose of this annoying thing you have to blow in. Yes, I drink. Drinking 18 yo single malt as I type this...but not going for a drive later. If I need to go somewhere, use a friend or a cab!
Having a couple beers with dinner and getting popped at a traffic check point with a 0.09 BAC is being a drug abuser?
I think drunk driving is wrong, but I think you are taking it a bit far.
Indeed. Anyone who thinks that a complete and total police state would eliminate or completely control human "misbehavior" is not only ignorant but fundamentally stupid and certainly should not be holding any position in which they have power over others. I seem to recall that personal freedom is something that is often lauded as what our military vets have died for - here in the US - opposing such thorough and socially devastating state control as that imposed by Stalin, Hitler, etc, in the name of protecting the citizens.
Good little citizen. Pat, pat, pat. ID, please. Are you a official citizen? Do you have any Sins to declare?
GSVEMR
Right, next you'll be asking for building and fire codes. I swear, you liberal nanny types are never satisfied!
Having demanded draconian laws for drinking, smoking, eating the wrong food, not buying * insurance, hiring the wrong skin color, making racy jokes, and, yes, building codes that require an army of inspectors to enforce, the liberal nanny types will then be complaining about police abusing their power, and they'll be whining about "law-and-order Republicans." It makes no fucking sense whatsoever.