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[Cocaloch]

It's just your typical cognitive dissonance being illustrated. Reality is a bitch and few have the will to see past their own bias (or vices in some cases) towards a reality intended to save lives.

Or people are aware that it's Utah....

I'm okay with changing the limit. I would even be okay making it lower than .05, but people in this thread are making bad moralizing arguments for why that should be.

None of these conditions are a choice, and when it comes to things like elderly drivers, the option not to drive was taken away from them with the creation of the interstate highway system and our dependence on cars above literally all else.

Your argument earlier was based on utilitarian ideas. Unless you want to admit there is more going on here than a simple calculation of utility for society you need to accept his point.

Also it's ironic that you don't realize that the second half of this is part of the reason this country has problems with DUIs.

Wait one hour per drink. Why is this hard? If you can't do that don't drink. Or drink at home.

....the fuck? How is that hard? Or some burden on people?

He's not talking about the law. He's talking about the many people in this thread who are saying you can't ever drive if you have any amount of alcohol. Wanting to stop people from driving at a .01 is a lost cause.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

You should probably read my last post.

Fair enough, glad that you've changed your mind. I can only hope more people do the same.

 

[gutter_trash]

Wait one hour per drink. Why is this hard? If you can't do that don't drink. Or drink at home.

....the fuck? How is that hard? Or some burden on people?

I agree. the one hour per drink rule is the universal rule for easy calculating.

People need to stop binge drinking and just act like adults and drink responsibly.

if one absolutely wants to binge, then they should not be driving at all..

 

[Wandering Robot]

I'm not in Utah, nor do I drink, but it sounds good to me. Any way to get this done in Louisiana?

 

[TheOfficeMut]

I wouldn't dare have more than the legal limit of alcohol and drive. Even then if I knew I'd be drinking, I wouldn't drive.

I am very lucky to live in NYC. Subways and taxis all day and night.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Also it's ironic that you don't realize that the second half of this is part of the reason this country has problems with DUIs.

I fully do, what part shows I didn't see that? I used to post about this subject (and bikes, and highways, and all urban planning) a lot. I think I opened a lot of minds here to the idea at all that elderly people can't give up driving or their IDs because it robs them of their agency and independent transportation, and that it's not that they're just stubborn jerks.

 

[Zoe]

Wait one hour per drink. Why is this hard? If you can't do that don't drink. Or drink at home.

....the fuck? How is that hard? Or some burden on people?

And people can't go out to eat without ordering alcohol?

I can't even imagine that kind of lifestyle.

 

[SecretMoblin]

None of these conditions are a choice, and when it comes to things like elderly drivers, the option not to drive was taken away from them with the creation of the interstate highway system and our dependence on cars above literally all else.

I'm entirely in favor of changing car culture, accelerating the standardization of self-driving cars, and any other broad-scale social changes that would reduce needless death.

But someone with two beers in their system over a 2 hour dinner is well within the range of acceptable variances in judgement and reaction times. "They don't have a choice" is of little consequence if these groups have higher risk of being involved in fatal crashes (per CDC). If our goal is to reduce risk on the roads, why not further limit age or disability as a factor? We already do. Driving is no right.

We've decided, through elected representatives, what the level of acceptable risk on the roads is. We give broad authority to the police to determine if someone is safe to drive, and even if someone passes a breathalyzer a police officer or patrolman can detain them for unsafe driving. If we adopt a "one drop" policy, as many here seem to support, it strikes me as bizarre that they would be fine with any number of other factors that could affect judgement and reaction times much more substantially than .02% BAC.

 

[thepotatoman]

Or people are aware that it's Utah....

I'm okay with changing the limit. I would even be okay making it lower than .05, but people in this thread are making bad moralizing arguments for why that should be.

My biggest worry with just lowering it to .03 is that everyone would just break it anyway, and then have nothing else in the law stopping them from drinking as much as they want past that point.

Have 2-3 drinks and you might as well have a dozen. Ends up making the streets less safe.

 

[Fantastical]

Wait one hour per drink. Why is this hard? If you can't do that don't drink. Or drink at home.

....the fuck? How is that hard? Or some burden on people?

Isn't that what he or she said?

 

[Maiden Voyage]

3 beers in an multiple hour outting, not one hour.

The point of me posting that chart was because some people did say an hour or over a meal (dunno how long it takes you to eat, but an hour for a meal is probably close):

A beer with your meal isn't going to put you over .05, ya goof. 2-3 beers probably won't, if your meal is a decent size.

So you can have 1-2 (maybe 3 depending on your size) beers with a dinner and probably be fine still, and people are mad at this?

0.05 means you can have 3 standard drinks in the first hour plus a single standard drink every hour after that.

1 beer with dinner would struggle to register.

 

[Lomax]

Lowering the legal limit doesn't do shit if getting a dui or dwi continues to basically be a slap on the wrist offense that no one takes seriously. If anything it will just make people less apologetic about getting one. The fact that there anyone out there with multiple dwi offenses still legally able to drive is abhorrent.

 

[Ardenyal]

Fucking americans wanting to be edgy.

 

[fixedpoint]

Excessive? Gross. It should be this way everywhere. If you've had drink or drugs of any amount in a 12 hour window, don't get behind the wheel, period.

Sure, ok. Nice way to eliminate traffic.

 

[ScatheZombie]

Good. It should be 0.05% everywhere really.

The real issue is that we have a cultural problem. If you've ever worked at a restaurant or bar, you know you will see dozens of people slam through a half dozen beers or multiple glasses of wine and get right into their car 20 minutes later. Every. Single. Night.

There's this idea that as long as you aren't shitfaced, slurring words, stumbling around, you are fine to drive. That driving with a buzz isn't drunk driving. And that having multiple drinks a night, multiple nights a week is 'casual drinking'. Everyone is doing it, so that's why it's fine.

You can see it in reactions in this thread. And you can definitely see it if you either don't drink or only truly drink casually. People are super aggressively defensive about their alcohol. And are oddly combative if you don't partake in equal portions of frequency and quantity as they do.

And the only way we're going to actually affect drunk driving injury/death numbers is by shifting that culture. Maybe lowering the legal limit will do that when more DUI/DWIs start getting handed out. Maybe it will happen when getting DUI/DWI is more than a slap on the wrist in most states.

And maybe it won't, but it's probably worth trying.

 

[Illucio]

I would have thought Lyft and Uber eliminated DUIs

Maybe they need the revenue and that's why they lowered the limit?

 

[kame-sennin]

EDIT: I express disappointment due to me breathing into a potentially inaccurate breathalyzer that my friend brought home from work and getting a reading of .06% after a 16 oz. Bud Light. This is honestly just a "first world problem" for me if I can't have a beer with dinner when I go out. It's not like I will protest this bill lol.

You should protest. The law is furthering the criminalization of society. You should always resist advances by the police state.

Good way to keep those jails packed and that fine money coming in.

Exactly.

 

[diehard]

You should protest. The law is furthering the criminalization of society. You should always resist advances by the police state.

fucking lol

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

fucking lol

Didn't see any lies in kame-sennin's post.

Do you have something to cite to argue against it?

 

[diehard]

Didn't see any lies in kame-sennin's post.

Do you have something to cite to argue against it?

besides the whole thing about society determining its laws?

like why do you think Utah is the first to lower it for the second time?

 

[direct_quote]

It's .05 in Minnesota so I don't see an issue with it. If im getting shit faced I get an Uber, but I also live in the city where I can walk too.. hopefully self driving cars and Uber eventually get rid of DUIs, but I can imagine people risk it who live in suburbs where Uber may not reach, or out in the country..

 

[mattwhite924]

Can some of you people really just not avoid drinking if you have to drive? Is it really that hard for you?

Screw the consequences, I need my drug. :/

 

[norm9]

This is stupid. One drink during dinner can lead to .05. .05 is not even buzzed driving.

 

[benicillin]

Good. Don't be an asshole who prioritizes their need to have an extra beer over the safety of everyone else traveling.

 

[ZOONAMI]

The point of me posting that chart was because some people did say an hour or over a meal (dunno how long it takes you to eat, but an hour for a meal is probably close):

I don't think everyone's metabolism deals with a drink that quickly.

Also, usually at a bar or restaurant you'd be given 16oz beers, so 2 beers is actually 3 beers. And if they are like 6.5% IPAs, 2 16oz beers like actually more like 4-5 beers. 3 of them is 6-7.

Mixed drinks are even harder to gauge if the bartender isn't measuring their shots out. A lot of places a standard mixed drink probably has 2oz of liquor in it, not one. So 3 mixed drinks is actually 6 drinks. With wine the pour could carry dramatically. 3 more full glasses of wine is actually 6 glasses of wine.

No way in hell anyone should be drinking 3 beers or drinks in an hour and then go driving. That's ridiculous.

This is exactly why you see most DUIs at like .15 or above. People rationalize oh I've only had like 4 beers over a couple hours. Yeah not really, you've had more like 8-9 beers because you weren't drinking 12oz glasses of 4% beer.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Yeah, nah.

Yeah, it is arbitrary. There's no scientific support for actual levels of intoxication at any given number. This is the definition of arbitrary.

People are "okay with it" because they don't have a problem with arresting people who aren't actually intoxicated on the grounds that it will somehow catch more people who are intoxicated, which there isn't any evidence of either.

 

[andythinkpad]

I am ok with it. Some people eho don't drink can't handle alcohol at all.

 

[benicillin]

I am ok with it. Some people eho don't drink can't handle alcohol at all.

And lots of people who do drink think they can handle more alcohol than they can, judging from everyone I've ever had to DD for.

 

[TylerD]

I feel like it has definitely helped though. It's been huge for me.

It's so nice being able to call an Uber rather than stay at a friend's (or random person's) house.

Yeah, it really sucks that there were absolutely zero options other than the ones you mentioned before Uber and Lyft came along!

 

[ZOONAMI]

Yeah, it really sucks that there were absolutely zero options other than the ones you mentioned before Uber and Lyft came along!

Yeah I always lol at this. It's like people don't realize you could call a cab in the past, going back like a century now lol.

 

[Frankfurter]

Like 2 hours, 12 oz of 5% beer, as a 6'5 260 pound male.

I limit myself to 2 when driving 95% of the time, and never have done more than 3.

Yeah, with two you are definitely fine, but even three should be okay due to the 2 hours.

 

[Cocaloch]

I fully do, what part shows I didn't see that? I used to post about this subject (and bikes, and highways, and all urban planning) a lot. I think I opened a lot of minds here to the idea at all that elderly people can't give up driving or their IDs because it robs them of their agency and independent transportation, and that it's not that they're just stubborn jerks.

The part where this

None of these conditions are a choice, and when it comes to things like elderly drivers, the option not to drive was taken away from them with the creation of the interstate highway system and our dependence on cars above literally all else.

was you trying to argue the difference between people driving under the effects of alcohol and those other groups of people people driving. The first part makes some sense as an argument, though you can easily push it far enough to where a strict black and white view falls apart, but the second part, especially the bolded, is clearly being positioned as another argument for how they are different.

If you meant for them to be understood as unrelated statments then they needed to be different sentences, and the ideas are close enough to probably need some sort of transition to make that clear. As it is anyone reading that would think you meant for those two things to go together.

 

[ZOONAMI]

Yeah, it is arbitrary. There's no scientific support for actual levels of intoxication at any given number. This is the definition of arbitrary.

People are "okay with it" because they don't have a problem with arresting people who aren't actually intoxicated on the grounds that it will somehow catch more people who are intoxicated, which there isn't any evidence of either.

Um, it's not completely arbitrary. Sure there is a lot of variability with body size and tolerance levels, but more blood alcohol directly correlates with intoxication level - that's how it works, the more you drink, the more intoxicated you get. I suppose you could change the standard higher, to like .20 to be pretty damn sure someone is going to be relatively intoxicated. .08 isn't arbitrary though, it's basically saying, hey, if you're driving, you probably shouldn't be drinking more than a couple beers. .05 is essentially moving that threshold down to one drink instead of two.

I don't see a problem with that. I sort of would have a problem with a zero tolerance threshold because then it forces people to wait around for 1-2 hours after drinking even a single drink before you can drive, which seems a bit too restrictive.

I also don't think a single DUI violation should be so difficult to get expunged and it shouldn't stay on your record for 10 year +. It causes too many problems for background checks, etc. People do make mistakes, but a one off should kind of be just that (of course with a hefty fine and community service, and a driving and alcohol class). If it happens again, yeah throw the book.

 

[Ekdrm2d1]

Should ban cigarettes in cars. Distraction from the road.

 

[pirateluigi]

This is stupid. One drink during dinner can lead to .05. .05 is not even buzzed driving.

I'm a 32 year old, 200 pound male. A 16 oz beer over an hour would put me at .01.

A 21 year old, 110 pound female could have a 16 oz beer over an hour and be at .04.

Unless you're counting a mixed drink with multiple shots as one drink, that isn't correct.

Also, .05 is definitely buzzed driving.

 

[ScatheZombie]

Should ban cigarettes

Yep.

 

[ZOONAMI]

I'm a 32 year old, 200 pound male. A 16 oz beer over an hour would put me at .01.

A 21 year old, 110 pound female could have a 16 oz beer over an hour and be at .04.

Unless you're counting a mixed drink with multiple shots as one drink, that isn't correct.

Also, .05 is definitely buzzed driving.

What you're referring to I think would be a 12oz beer at 4-5% alcohol. A 16 oz 6% beer would get most men even fairly close to .05.

Most of the drink BAC charts don't make sense because they don't reflect most beers, mixed drinks, or wine pours that you actually consume at bars. Bars want to get you a bit buzzed with a single beverage so you're more inclined to order another, and then another.

I think this is a good thing. People shouldn't be having 2-3 typical drinks you actually encounter and then be driving.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

You know who never wants to drive when they're fucked up? Stoners.

 

[direct_quote]

TBH thinking about this thread states should require having a breathalyzer (or at least promote the use) in bars. I'd like to know if I'm at the legal limit before I get into a car instead of playing guess work in my head.

 

[norm9]

TBH thinking about this thread states should require having a breathalyzer (or at least promote the use) in bars. I'd like to know if I'm at the legal limit before I get into a car instead of playing guess work in my head.

It'd be easier to just give you ONE drink maximum and then force you to stick around for an hour before you're allowed to leave.

 

[ZOONAMI]

TBH thinking about this thread states should require having a breathalyzer (or at least promote the use) in bars. I'd like to know if I'm at the legal limit before I get into a car instead of playing guess work in my head.

Yes, this would be a good law. I have seen some bars that have them. At the same time it's not like you can force people to use them. You could always buy your own handheld breathalyzer I suppose.

 

[pirateluigi]

What you're referring to I think would be a 12oz beer at 4-5% alcohol. A 16 oz 6% beer would get most men even fairly close to .05.

I think this is a good thing. People shouldn't be having 2-3 typical drinks you actually encounter and then be driving.

I used an online calculator and specifically used 16 oz of 5% alcohol, since I figured that's more typical. Anyway, 1 average drink over the course of a meal isn't likely to put you over and even less so if you sit and wait for a bit before leaving and driving.

 

[DarkestHour]

In colorado, .05% is driving while impaired, which carries fewer penalties than the .08% driving while intoxicated. I think that it's a good idea.

.08% should be felony with mandatory jail time and losing your drivers licence. .05% shouldn't be much more than be a few hundred dollar fine and community service, at least on first offense.

I know personally I stop trusting myself after about 3 beers when drinking quickly enough, which i guess is around .05%.

In Minnesota if you get enough DUIs they still let you have your license AND you get a really cool license plate that starts with a "W".

It is really disgusting how lenient the governments are with repeat offense drunk drivers.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Um, it's not completely arbitrary. Sure there is a lot of variability with body size and tolerance levels, but more blood alcohol directly correlates with intoxication level - that's how it works, the more you drink, the more intoxicated you get. I suppose you could change the standard higher, to like .20 to be pretty damn sure someone is going to be relatively intoxicated. .08 isn't arbitrary though, it's basically saying, hey, if you're driving, you probably shouldn't be drinking more than a couple beers. .05 is essentially moving that threshold down to one drink instead of two.

I don't see a problem with that. I sort of would have a problem with a zero tolerance threshold because then it forces people to wait around for 1-2 hours after drinking even a single drink before you can drive, which seems a bit too restrictive.

I also don't think a single DUI violation should be so difficult to get expunged and it shouldn't stay on your record for 10 year +. It causes too many problems for background checks, etc. People do make mistakes, but a one off should kind of be just that (of course with a hefty fine and community service, and a driving and alcohol class). If it happens again, yeah throw the book.

It's completely arbitrary. I've done graduate level work on the topic; there is no evidence that .08 means anything on a universal level, much less .05. That's what arbitrary means.

TBH thinking about this thread states should require having a breathalyzer (or at least promote the use) in bars. I'd like to know if I'm at the legal limit before I get into a car instead of playing guess work in my head.

A better solution is putting more money into automated cars. But it's not about road safety, its about racking up $5000 fines from people who get DUIs at sort-of constitutional traffic checkpoints.

 

[CyclopsRock]

The OP is really hard to read because I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be adding "whilst driving" to the end of all the sentences. Am i? Why do they keep talking about "legal blood alcohol level" without mentioning driving? *Is* it only talking about driving?

 

[ZOONAMI]

In Minnesota if you get enough DUIs they still let you have your license AND you get a really cool license plate that starts with a "W".

It is really disgusting how lenient the governments are with repeat offense drunk drivers.

I live in MN. I'm not exactly sure but I think you get the W plates for a second dwi. It also matters what the BAC was. I believe if it's over .15 they revoke your license for a year. The W plates are a red flag for cops to keep an eye on you. But yeah they could be more strict in general for multiple offenses. The problem is if people live somewhere rural and don't have public transportation options.

 

[Ekdrm2d1]

Won't people think of the beee snob culture.

 

[The Futurist]

Just make the punishments so severe that people won't risk it.

If people aren't willing to spend $10-$15 on an uber or lyft to get home, then put on thousands of dollars in fines and a minimum 5 year suspension on their license.

That will wake people up real quick.

The vast majority of preventable deaths from things like drunk driving in this country will decrease if people actually become afraid of the consequences of their actions.

 

[ZOONAMI]

It's completely arbitrary. I've done graduate level work on the topic; there is no evidence that .08 means anything on a universal level, much less .05. That's what arbitrary means.



A better solution is putting more money into automated cars. But it's not about road safety, its about racking up $5000 fines from people who get DUIs at sort-of constitutional traffic checkpoints.

Ok fine, but how else are you supposed to measure intoxication? Is there a non arbitrary level? And automation is an eventual solution, but I would still think you don't want someone who is blasted at like .3 in an automated car, at least not until there isn't even a manual option in automated cars.

 

[Trey]

Should ban cigarettes in cars. Distraction from the road.

We really just need to ban manual driving. Save us, Google.