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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bowling buddies (mmm, beer and Wii Bowling, good times), that prohibition is effectively back in even though it's been repealed.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.
I'd tell you to die in a fire, but you probably will anyway. Just try not to take anybody with you, ok?