Laws like this that aren't objective cannot be enforced. It was all the people driving while they were impaired that required laws regarding drunk driving to begin with; then you need an objective limit to test. I think it's too low (and it's creeped down over the years), but there still needs to be some objective limit.
Cabs are expensive, buses don't exist, friends aren't always available, sleeping in a bar will get you arrested, hotels are expensive, propping yourself up on the side of a wall will get you arrested.
Alcohol is expensive. Drinks in bars and restaurants are expensive. You probably shouldn't go OUT drinking if you can't afford to get home without putting other people's lives at risk.
And, of course, whatever the reason - medical condition or not, you're still not supposed to drive while impaired. The class I took to be able to serve alcohol made that clear, and, for example, if someone is very tired then even below the legal BAC limit they can still get a ticked for driving impaired.
So you're driving down a road in an area that is flat for miles, with no obstacles, nothing to obscure your view of anything for a long distance, but you come to an intersection that has a four way stop. You can clearly see there's no other vehicles coming from either side (or the front) long before you get there. Do you stop?
If you said "no," then I'm right there with you, because the intent of the law that you must come to a complete stop before continuing is for the sake of safety, but clearly it's safe to proceed without stopping.
However, does that mean if, for example, there was a police car behind you, he shouldn't give you a ticket?
So, if I was that cop, I probably wouldn't want to give someone that did that a ticket unless there was something else wrong, too. But still, if a cop DID give you a ticket, you wouldn't be able to fight it - you violated traffic code. If you're driving down a 45MPH road going 50MPH, and other people are going 55MPH, and a cop pulls you over and gives you a ticket, you wouldn't be able to fight it. That other people were going faster doesn't change the fact you were speeding.
The law has to have objective limits or it's unenforceable. There are people under 18 who are smarter and more informed than people over 18, yet they can't vote. There are people under 21 (and under 18) that could drink responsibly, but they aren't allowed to by law... because the law needs objective limits. I'm not a fan of the way legal BAC levels have dropped, but unfortunately, in order to be objective, they have to follow the lowest common denominator.
Now, if you think about what "circletimessquare " wrote, if people just never drove while they were impaired, there probably wouldn't be ANY laws regarding driving while intoxicated because there wouldn't need to be. And if people drove reasonably in parking lots, there wouldn't be speed bumps (because nobody likes those - but because people couldn't drive reasonably now we are stuck with them). There are all sorts of annoying laws and traffic code because people just couldn't keep themselves from acting like complete idiots. Don't blame the police, blame the people that made those laws necessary.
Laws are a result of human behavior, and if they aren't objective then they can't be enforced.
You should be able to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't infringe on anybody else's rights. And there should be no exceptions to the rule - the only issue is what "rights" are. Do you have the right to sleep at 2:00am, or can someone lean on their horn on the street in front of your house? At the same time, can people be playing roudy and loud in a park while you're trying to take a nap under a tree? So... maybe in addition it should often also include someone else's 'freedom to do what they want.'
I don't go out much anymore, but when I was in college I played DD many times - but only when the plan was to go out drinking a lot. And that didn't even mean that I didn't drink at all, just that I didn't drink much... sometimes nothing, but absolutely no more than one typical drink per hour (the supposed rate alcohol leaves your system). Never did it mean not having a drink with dinner.... it meant not having a pitcher of beer with dinner.
You're completely uneducated guess is correct - people's brains often tune out the radio when the road requires more attention. Radios are not problems unless some idiot is trying to impress the neighborhood with it instead of just listening happily to their own tunes, in which case they can no longer here emergency vehicles or even people honking at them to stop playing with the dial and go because the light turned green 10 seconds ago!
You are absolutely right about having a conversation with someone in the car. This does cause problems, but not as often as you'd think, because they tend to also see the driving situation and the attentiveness of the driver and often back off with the conversation (whether or not they even realize they're doing it).
So the problem with talking on the phone, even hands free, is that the other person is demanding your attention and they DON'T know what your driving circumstances are. You stop paying attention to them and they get mad, maybe even talking louder ("are you even listening to me?!?!"). So hands free or not, talking on the phone while driving is a BAD idea.
Only subversives use methods of communication that cannot be filtered through government systems. So add talking in person to the list (along with paying in cash).
The Americans did it right - TMI released practically nothing into the atmosphere; you get more natural radiation from the natural stones by standing in the entry hall of the United Nations building than you'd have gotten standing next to TMI.
Let's see... the main character just married Kaley Cuoco's character. Doesn't sound like a total loser to me. Of course, a loser like Leonard marrying Penny might be an indication of jumping the shark, too. The only nerds getting women that attractive are the rich ones.
I like it, too; it's got it's problems, but it makes me laugh, which is the point. If anything, though, I see it more as the wet dream of nerds - they all get women (some of them quite attractive, some of them nerdy themselves - which is very attractive to a lot of nerds). I work in a very creative environment, with a lot of animators and artists - and a lot of them like the show. They all have toy collections and nerdy sides to them. The show doesn't have intellectual humor - it just makes you think it does; at the end of the day, it's like a lot of other sitcoms where we watch the lives of a bunch of social misfits - like the Simpsons, Married with Children, Seinfeld...
And then what? Did he always need his friends around after that to defend himself against you? I know it didn't feel like it at the time, but frankly, you "won."
I was the fat, slow kid that a lot of people picked on. On two separate occasions - once in middle school, and once in high school, I turned on the guy hassling me and just started pounding. Got in trouble at school; in school suspensions. Neither of those guys hassled me again. My only regret is not doing it sooner and more often.
Man, oh man... there's so much to what you are saying, not even all of it has to do with the issue at hand (there should be death penalty for drivers stopping past the stop line at a red light so that drivers to their right CAN'T see what's coming from the left(*)), but I have to question those statistics, too.
If the laws are favorable to pedestrians - like that they really do, literally, always have the right of way - then the "at fault" statistic is going to be skewed. The article states that pedestrians ARE cited, so there must be some restrictions, but without knowing in who's favor the laws are skewed (pedestrains vs. vehicles), a statistic like 64% being any particular group's "fault" is hard to decipher.
(*) I mean, what benefit does a person turning left get by stopping AFTER the stop line? The ONLY things they succeed in doing are blocking the view for people who might be able to make right on red turns, and (possibly) obstructing traffic turning left from the cross street.
I hear you, but if you're going to stop doing business with every company that has done some sort of anti-consumer "trick," you'd be hard pressed to find any companies to do business with (even FOSS).
Yes, what you're saying is true to a large extent, but pedestrians also act all superior and like they always have the right of way - they don't. Pardon the pun, but it's a two way street. I'd definitely like more pedestrian friendly areas with lower speed limits (and bike lanes for everyone!), seriously... but we don't have that, so pedestrians need to be careful to. Yes, I drive to work, but I otherwise do a lot of walking, and never presume someone sees me or that I have the right of way when I'm cutting across a street and not using a crosswalk.
Even Missouri gets that right.... That means that any pedestrian-involved accidents are automatically the vehicle driver's fault, including any applicable criminal charges.
The problem here is you think that's getting it "right."
Virtually everywhere else, if a pedestrian is hit on a roadway and they're NOT in the crosswalk, if they aren't killed then THEY'RE the ones getting a ticket for jay-walking.
And THAT is "right." And I say this as someone who prefers walking when possible.
There were not many standalone devices - not computers, something cheap (sub $100) and simple (easy to move around) - that could do both. Chromecast still can't. I could have gone cheaper with a FireStick (or whatever it's called), but I liked some other things about FireTV, too (and waited for a sale).
Yes, it's not "free" the same way education and healthcare aren't (and never will be) "free." But you end up saving a lot of money and getting the added convenience of 2-day shipping. So if you use it enough, then maybe your first 10 or 12 expedited orders are "prepaid," but everything after that it is free (to the customer anyway - someone's paying). So yes, not quite free, if you want to be pedantic about it, but more like "buy 10, get as many as you want."
Well, I'm repeating myself here, but the awkward thing here is that they withheld apps for Prime from other devices while they were trying to sell kindles. I wouldn't buy a kindle for Prime, I doubt anyone would. In fact, people don't buy prime for the video, they just take advantage of the video after signing up for free 2-day shipping, which is what the vast majority of people who sign up for prime are looking for.
But the point is a few years ago they withheld general android support trying to get people to buy their hardware. They didn't realize prime video wasn't a motivating factor in purchasing a tablet, but nowadays you CAN get a generic android app for Prime. Now it seems they are going back in time to try a similar strategy to sell the hardware - this time by not selling competing hardware at all.
My magic eight-ball says this will go on for some time, then when it doesn't work, they will start selling these devices again. At the same time, if there are generally available Amazon Prime apps available, why wouldn't Google and Apple try to support them? I get it - competitors for content, but that strategy is not going to work for anybody, it's just pissing off customers. Seems like Amazon wins a few Emmy's and think they can start dictating terms.
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Laws like this that aren't objective cannot be enforced. It was all the people driving while they were impaired that required laws regarding drunk driving to begin with; then you need an objective limit to test. I think it's too low (and it's creeped down over the years), but there still needs to be some objective limit.
Cabs are expensive, buses don't exist, friends aren't always available, sleeping in a bar will get you arrested, hotels are expensive, propping yourself up on the side of a wall will get you arrested.
Alcohol is expensive. Drinks in bars and restaurants are expensive. You probably shouldn't go OUT drinking if you can't afford to get home without putting other people's lives at risk.
And, of course, whatever the reason - medical condition or not, you're still not supposed to drive while impaired. The class I took to be able to serve alcohol made that clear, and, for example, if someone is very tired then even below the legal BAC limit they can still get a ticked for driving impaired.
So you're driving down a road in an area that is flat for miles, with no obstacles, nothing to obscure your view of anything for a long distance, but you come to an intersection that has a four way stop. You can clearly see there's no other vehicles coming from either side (or the front) long before you get there. Do you stop?
If you said "no," then I'm right there with you, because the intent of the law that you must come to a complete stop before continuing is for the sake of safety, but clearly it's safe to proceed without stopping.
However, does that mean if, for example, there was a police car behind you, he shouldn't give you a ticket?
So, if I was that cop, I probably wouldn't want to give someone that did that a ticket unless there was something else wrong, too. But still, if a cop DID give you a ticket, you wouldn't be able to fight it - you violated traffic code. If you're driving down a 45MPH road going 50MPH, and other people are going 55MPH, and a cop pulls you over and gives you a ticket, you wouldn't be able to fight it. That other people were going faster doesn't change the fact you were speeding.
The law has to have objective limits or it's unenforceable. There are people under 18 who are smarter and more informed than people over 18, yet they can't vote. There are people under 21 (and under 18) that could drink responsibly, but they aren't allowed to by law... because the law needs objective limits. I'm not a fan of the way legal BAC levels have dropped, but unfortunately, in order to be objective, they have to follow the lowest common denominator.
Now, if you think about what "circletimessquare " wrote, if people just never drove while they were impaired, there probably wouldn't be ANY laws regarding driving while intoxicated because there wouldn't need to be. And if people drove reasonably in parking lots, there wouldn't be speed bumps (because nobody likes those - but because people couldn't drive reasonably now we are stuck with them). There are all sorts of annoying laws and traffic code because people just couldn't keep themselves from acting like complete idiots. Don't blame the police, blame the people that made those laws necessary.
Laws are a result of human behavior, and if they aren't objective then they can't be enforced.
You should be able to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't infringe on anybody else's rights. And there should be no exceptions to the rule - the only issue is what "rights" are. Do you have the right to sleep at 2:00am, or can someone lean on their horn on the street in front of your house? At the same time, can people be playing roudy and loud in a park while you're trying to take a nap under a tree? So... maybe in addition it should often also include someone else's 'freedom to do what they want.'
I promise you, if you drank a glass of wine (even two!) over the course of your hour long dinner at a restaurant, you'd still be sober.
I don't go out much anymore, but when I was in college I played DD many times - but only when the plan was to go out drinking a lot. And that didn't even mean that I didn't drink at all, just that I didn't drink much... sometimes nothing, but absolutely no more than one typical drink per hour (the supposed rate alcohol leaves your system). Never did it mean not having a drink with dinner.... it meant not having a pitcher of beer with dinner.
AOL still exists?
You're completely uneducated guess is correct - people's brains often tune out the radio when the road requires more attention. Radios are not problems unless some idiot is trying to impress the neighborhood with it instead of just listening happily to their own tunes, in which case they can no longer here emergency vehicles or even people honking at them to stop playing with the dial and go because the light turned green 10 seconds ago!
You are absolutely right about having a conversation with someone in the car. This does cause problems, but not as often as you'd think, because they tend to also see the driving situation and the attentiveness of the driver and often back off with the conversation (whether or not they even realize they're doing it).
So the problem with talking on the phone, even hands free, is that the other person is demanding your attention and they DON'T know what your driving circumstances are. You stop paying attention to them and they get mad, maybe even talking louder ("are you even listening to me?!?!"). So hands free or not, talking on the phone while driving is a BAD idea.
Don't get in one unless you plan on being an attentive and respectful driver.
What about the bored passengers?
They're there to distract the drivers.
Only subversives use methods of communication that cannot be filtered through government systems. So add talking in person to the list (along with paying in cash).
The Americans did it right - TMI released practically nothing into the atmosphere; you get more natural radiation from the natural stones by standing in the entry hall of the United Nations building than you'd have gotten standing next to TMI.
If we'd just stop inhabiting the planet, hunting, and farming, then the other animals would be better off! Who'd have thought?
Let's see... the main character just married Kaley Cuoco's character. Doesn't sound like a total loser to me. Of course, a loser like Leonard marrying Penny might be an indication of jumping the shark, too. The only nerds getting women that attractive are the rich ones.
I like it, too; it's got it's problems, but it makes me laugh, which is the point. If anything, though, I see it more as the wet dream of nerds - they all get women (some of them quite attractive, some of them nerdy themselves - which is very attractive to a lot of nerds). I work in a very creative environment, with a lot of animators and artists - and a lot of them like the show. They all have toy collections and nerdy sides to them. The show doesn't have intellectual humor - it just makes you think it does; at the end of the day, it's like a lot of other sitcoms where we watch the lives of a bunch of social misfits - like the Simpsons, Married with Children, Seinfeld...
And then what? Did he always need his friends around after that to defend himself against you? I know it didn't feel like it at the time, but frankly, you "won."
I was the fat, slow kid that a lot of people picked on. On two separate occasions - once in middle school, and once in high school, I turned on the guy hassling me and just started pounding. Got in trouble at school; in school suspensions. Neither of those guys hassled me again. My only regret is not doing it sooner and more often.
But you don't have to be a douchebag to get your message across tersely and efficiently.
Replace the italicized part with "unprofessional" to see what we can do differently to avoid problems.
Man, oh man... there's so much to what you are saying, not even all of it has to do with the issue at hand (there should be death penalty for drivers stopping past the stop line at a red light so that drivers to their right CAN'T see what's coming from the left(*)), but I have to question those statistics, too.
If the laws are favorable to pedestrians - like that they really do, literally, always have the right of way - then the "at fault" statistic is going to be skewed. The article states that pedestrians ARE cited, so there must be some restrictions, but without knowing in who's favor the laws are skewed (pedestrains vs. vehicles), a statistic like 64% being any particular group's "fault" is hard to decipher.
(*) I mean, what benefit does a person turning left get by stopping AFTER the stop line? The ONLY things they succeed in doing are blocking the view for people who might be able to make right on red turns, and (possibly) obstructing traffic turning left from the cross street.
I hear you, but if you're going to stop doing business with every company that has done some sort of anti-consumer "trick," you'd be hard pressed to find any companies to do business with (even FOSS).
Yes, what you're saying is true to a large extent, but pedestrians also act all superior and like they always have the right of way - they don't. Pardon the pun, but it's a two way street. I'd definitely like more pedestrian friendly areas with lower speed limits (and bike lanes for everyone!), seriously... but we don't have that, so pedestrians need to be careful to. Yes, I drive to work, but I otherwise do a lot of walking, and never presume someone sees me or that I have the right of way when I'm cutting across a street and not using a crosswalk.
1. post traffic cops/cameras at bad areas 2. photograph offenders 3. Track down & levy enormous fines
That's only possible if pedestrians wear license plates on their asses, because probably a good percentage of the time it's their fault.
Even Missouri gets that right. ... That means that any pedestrian-involved accidents are automatically the vehicle driver's fault, including any applicable criminal charges.
The problem here is you think that's getting it "right."
Virtually everywhere else, if a pedestrian is hit on a roadway and they're NOT in the crosswalk, if they aren't killed then THEY'RE the ones getting a ticket for jay-walking.
And THAT is "right." And I say this as someone who prefers walking when possible.
There were not many standalone devices - not computers, something cheap (sub $100) and simple (easy to move around) - that could do both. Chromecast still can't. I could have gone cheaper with a FireStick (or whatever it's called), but I liked some other things about FireTV, too (and waited for a sale).
Yes, it's not "free" the same way education and healthcare aren't (and never will be) "free." But you end up saving a lot of money and getting the added convenience of 2-day shipping. So if you use it enough, then maybe your first 10 or 12 expedited orders are "prepaid," but everything after that it is free (to the customer anyway - someone's paying). So yes, not quite free, if you want to be pedantic about it, but more like "buy 10, get as many as you want."
Well, I'm repeating myself here, but the awkward thing here is that they withheld apps for Prime from other devices while they were trying to sell kindles. I wouldn't buy a kindle for Prime, I doubt anyone would. In fact, people don't buy prime for the video, they just take advantage of the video after signing up for free 2-day shipping, which is what the vast majority of people who sign up for prime are looking for.
But the point is a few years ago they withheld general android support trying to get people to buy their hardware. They didn't realize prime video wasn't a motivating factor in purchasing a tablet, but nowadays you CAN get a generic android app for Prime. Now it seems they are going back in time to try a similar strategy to sell the hardware - this time by not selling competing hardware at all.
My magic eight-ball says this will go on for some time, then when it doesn't work, they will start selling these devices again. At the same time, if there are generally available Amazon Prime apps available, why wouldn't Google and Apple try to support them? I get it - competitors for content, but that strategy is not going to work for anybody, it's just pissing off customers. Seems like Amazon wins a few Emmy's and think they can start dictating terms.