American Culture and the DUI

Following on from discussion here:

HELP A FELLOW ILXOR: My brush with small town corrupt cops this weekend.

Fun fact: in the southwest, DUIs are called DWIs. And the DMVs and called MVDs!

http://cdn.pastemagazine.com/www/articles/2010/08/02/arcade%20fire%20the%20suburbs.jpg?1280760687

Given a few of the comments on the other thread, I'm probably going to start a shitstorm by saying this, but the "oh if only I had public transportation options I wouldn't have to drive drunk" excuse fills me with near incoherent rage. Entitled bullshit, tbh.

It was called DWI in New Hampshire when I was growing up. No idea if they've switched terminology.

There was a substitute teacher who got arrested for DWI on his moped.

in maryland we have both DUI and DWI

"oh if only I had public transportation options I wouldn't have to drive drunk"

Haven't seen anyone actually saying this. Maybe you meant off this board.

Right, no one was coming out and saying that directly, but it seemed like an undercurrent a couple things people were saying.

I have drank plenty in small towns with shit transportation systems. Either drink close to home (so you can walk home), drink early in the day before the buses quit running, or make sure you have the $$$ for a taxi. Inconvenient if you like to go to ragers out in the boonies that end at 4 a.m. I guess?

I hope people still say "rager."

Hahahah buses and taxis, right. Not disagreeing w you but

?

I think we should also maybe be talking about local policing as much as people's actual drinking habits. Does the rate of DD-ing vary wildly between, say, Knoxville and other parts of the country, or is the enforcement the greater variable?

xp Small towns have buses and/or taxis??

...yes? I mean Las Cruces did. Idaho Falls did.

Was just thinking about this the other day when I drove by a bar in a "suburban" but still within city limits, part of town that is basically inaccessible except by car. I mean, no public transport, no bike lanes, no fucking SIDEWALKS in the area. You have to assume that unless people are going there for one drink only, basically everyone leaving that parking lot is breaking the law. Personally, I just avoid places like this and am grateful I live in a walkable city center, but it is a weird phenomena and I think municipalities do have a responsibility to provide public transportation options.

tbh, I have no idea if the town I grew up in has taxis or not

there was a Greyhound that went up to the Twin Cities twice a day but I think I only saw it once in the 16 years that I lived in that area

In Las Cruces buses didn't run past 7 p.m. but there were plenty of Saturdays I'd go out to lunch, have a couple beers, and take the bus home & have an afternoon nap. Pretty cool, I know!

it is a weird phenomenon

In my plains college town, with a big party school / major research university at the heart of civic life, there is one taxi. Not just one taxi company, one taxi. And haha at buses.

I try to avoid driving Thursday-Saturday evenings; it can get pretty nuts.

I actually only drank up until i got my driving license. When I did, aged 17, I was the first of my friends to get it and 'cos I lived in the sticks I was designated driver for about a year. Don't think it would have occurred to any of us that it was acceptable to drink/drive. Don't know if this was an England thing or a having very straight edge friends thing. By the time I got to university I was so used to not drinking I couldn't really be arsed to start again.

Whoah xp! Las Cruces and Idaho Falls are big cities!

Everyone else otm about bars being in the middle of nowhere with no other access EXCEPT by car. You can argue that everyone is free to bring a designated driver but c'mon, whatever governing body gave that place a liquor license has to know better.

In high school, I had friends who swore that they were better drivers after they'd been drinking because they were so paranoid about driving impaired, they drove under the speed limit and tried to pay extra attention.

I never, ever went to parties with these friends where I wasn't the one driving (as a general rule, I didn't drink at high school parties because lol only black guy at a small town party).

They're actually called DWI in MN too!

I automatically figure in an extra $20 and have a cab number handy when drinking in the Twin Cities, because DUH. There are OK public transport options in the cities themselves but they are all about the 9-5 commute. Many of my sister's friends don't like to use cabs because they feel judged by the Somalis who are driving most of them - which is totally racist, obvs, but did I mention the pervasive bigotry that runs through them like iron in taconite?

LOL you'd think the small town free market would spit up the occasional obviously necessary car service?

how do you guys say dui

I go "dewey" or "dooey"

obv. fuck you dwi heathens

dee-you-eye

"dwee," right?

The reason we don't have any good public transportation is everyone who doesn't live in one of the five biggest cities in America* thinks "haha buses." I am sorry for alleging some pop 400 town in BFE has buses or taxis but at that point, don't you live right by the watering post anyway? Or...have found some other way around drinking and driving?

* dept. of statistics I totally made up just now

ohio has OVI

I didn't drink or go anywhere with people who drank when I lived in a small town, so I have no idea about that, but I believe that young people there make a good effort to go out with a DD but I feel pretty sure that lots of people drive drunk at least SOME of the time, and that no one is taking the risk v seriously when the trip home is through cornfields/woods.

Some of them do have those! Well, at least one used to. When I was delivering pizzas in the shitty small Illinois town I lived in at the time I got to know a dude who started up his own service doing just that. Passed his card out at the 4 local town bars and got to know the owners and he did decently brisk business.

(way xpost now)

I have a couple family member who've been killed by drunk drivers

do states that only have DWI have just one level of impairment you can have?

One of my favorite people ever died drinking & riding his bike. So, drinking AND being in a super fast death machine that weighs over a ton...the idea scares the shit out of me.

When I lived in Oxford (MS), there was a brief attempt to run a shuttle service between campus and the courthouse square (hub for the town's most popular bars). I seem to remember there being some pushback against such a service even existing, because it just encouraged students to go out and drink. (The alcohol equivalent of abstinence-only vs. responsible use of birth control.) The service lasted about a semester iirc.

one dude's car had a blowout, he pulled to the side of the freeway and a drunk driver plowed into it a little later, killing his wife

15 years later a drunk driver plowed into his car head on and killed him and his 2nd wife and one of their kids

Wm, that's EXACTLY what I tried to say in prev thread, that public opinion about alcohol use just about mirrors public opinion about sex. Everyone totally in denial imo.

I lived in Moscow, Idaho -- no bus but it had a couple taxi companies AND a free drunk van for students. Plus everything existed within 20 minutes of each other... no excuse for a DUI there.

he had a couple other kids in the car who lived though

Viceroy, 20 mins' drive or 20 mins' walk?

Yeah maybe college towns are good abt at least having some options bcz kids like to drink? Except I guess Euler's town, which is laughable to even think of?

my town has population 50,000; as I said, 1 taxi; and my "haha buses" doesn't mean I think they'd be a bad idea, but that we don't have them & I don't see them coming in the near future.

I figure that just about everyone on the roads on a Thursday-Saturday night has at least some juice in their veins.

We have DUIs and DWIs. DUI is what they nail you with under .08 if they want, DWI if you're over. Automatic DWI charge if you don't blow, and from what I understand you cannot plead DWI to a lesser charge.

I live in the largest city in the US without any form of mass transit (and those in Fort Worth and Dallas are functionally useless). Taxis to get almost anywhere inside of town are $20+. While lack of options may not excuse drunk driving, the reality is that that situation a huge contributor to causing it. That these cities have no problem profiting from liquor taxes (and DUI/DWI arrests) but are completely unwilling to look at ways to mitigate the problem is the height of absurdity.

And telling people "don't drink" is about as effective as abstinence education.

xp 20 mins walk.

Sorry Euler ––– I assumed your town had buses but you were lolling at their existence (because it is an attitude I have encountered a lot). Looks like I made an ass out of me.

note: this is a town of almost 400k, that is over 4 times as large as Manhattan, with zero buses and no in-city taxi service (they're all dispatched from Dallas or Fort Worth, AFAIK).

yeah, this place blows me away w/ how minimal a civic apparatus we have---but we have a fuckload of bars! lots of students walk to/fro the bars so that cuts down on the drunk driving, but plenty of people who go to the bars there drive. It's a ridic scene.

xp harbl - I think California will add a reckless driving charge or some other higher charge to the DUI if you do something like drive drunk going 80 mph on the freeway in the wrong direction.

yeah those people tend to die in really talented ways

Like Nz we have a p massive drunk culture and a lotta drink driving sure. Used to be hell worse but we've had decades of strict BAC laws. If yr over .05 you get charged and demerits taken off yr licence(no jail time fr minor offences I don't think). We have booze vans all over that flag ppl randomly. Large, gory ad campaigns on tv with ppl smashed to bits in cars. It's helped, but australia is still a boozy country like wo.

idk about everybody else but i think kerm is one step away from saying 'drinking and driving, what's the big deal?'

personally my driving skill tends to go off-kilter when i'm even just at .04

maybe you just aren't as cool as kerm??

yea, think that's it

if i had more mojo i could drive while getting head and trimming my toenails naked

BAC limits by country (wikipedia)

doesn't reveal how strictly they're enforced, but it's worth noting that just as far as BAC limits go, we're in a group w/ the least strict countries.

Zero tolerance, (It is illegal to have any alcohol in your blood while driving in these countries.)
Since there is always some amount of alcohol even in non-drinkers' bodies, they have to have some legal guidelines for determining what behavior is illegal. Often that guideline is something like impairment in driving to any degree that can be shown to be probably caused by recent alcohol consumption.
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Romania (beyond 0.08% drivers will not only receive a fine and have their license suspended, the offense will also be added to their criminal records.)
Russia
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Brazil
Bangladesh
Hungary
Canada - new drivers undergoing graduated licensing in Ontario, Quebec, Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; drivers under the age of 22 in Ontario[9]

0.02%
China
Estonia
Poland
Norway (road vehicles)
Netherlands (for drivers in their first five years after gaining a driving license[10])
Sweden
Puerto Rico (for drivers 18–20 years old)[11]

0.03%
India (note: In the State of Kerala, a policy of zero tolerance has developed.)[12]
Serbia
Japan[13]
Uruguay[14] (0.00% for truck/taxi/bus drivers)[15]

0.04%
Lithuania (0.02% for drivers in their first two years after gaining a driving license)
Canada: Saskatchewan - provincial offense

0.05%
Argentina (0.02% for motorbikes, 0.00% for truck/taxi/bus drivers)
Australia (0.00% for Australian Capital Territory learner, probationary & convicted DUI drivers (changed down from 0.02% on December 1, 2010), 0.02% for truck/bus/taxi, 0.00% for learner drivers, provisional/probationary drivers (regardless of age), truck and bus drivers, driving instructors and DUI drivers in all other states)
Austria
Belarus
Belgium
Bulgaria
Canada: British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia - provincial offence
Costa Rica[16]
Croatia
Denmark
Finland
France (0.025% for bus drivers)[17]
Germany (0.00% for learner drivers, all drivers 18-21 and newly licensed drivers of any age for first two years of licence; also, if the BAC exceeds 0.03%, driving is illegal if the driver is showing changes in behavior ("Relative Fahruntüchtigkeit"))
Greece
Hong Kong
Iceland
Ireland (0.02% for learner drivers and professional drivers) [18]
Israel
Italy
Latvia (0.02% for drivers in their first two years after gaining a driving license)
Luxembourg
Macedonia (0.00% for drivers in their first two years after gaining a driving license)
Netherlands (0.02% for drivers in their first five years after gaining a driving license)[10]
Peru
Portugal
Slovenia (0.00% for drivers in their first two years after gaining a drivers licence, drivers under 21 and common drivers, such as buses, trucks...)
South Africa
Spain (0.03% for drivers in their first two years after gaining a driving license and common carriers, such as buses, trucks...)
Switzerland
Thailand
Taiwan
Turkey

0.08%
Canada[19] - criminal offence
Malaysia
Malta
Mexico
New Zealand (0.03% for drivers under 20)
Norway (legal limit for some sea vessels)
Puerto Rico (for drivers 21 years and older)[11]
Singapore[20]
United Kingdom[21] (0.02% for operators of fixed-wing aircraft)
United States

A friend of mine, someone of high social estate as it were, recently got a DUI. I was pretty surprised because it seemed like such a low class thing to get, but on the other hand this person has a problem with the sauce & drove whilst on it so it's not like it came out of the blue. It's fucked things up royally for this person, since it's costly not just for fines but also for losing driving privileges. Though I'm surprised at my thought that a DUI is a low class thing to get: why would I think such a thing?

Because cops pick on poor people.

Yeah, I guess that's probably it. I have lots of non-poor friends who get speeding tickets & other moving violations, though. tbh I only know two people decently-ish who've gotten DUIs & both are upper middle-class+, but both have spent time in rehab for alcohol.

strange how la ilxors haven't been contributing to this thread ; )

lol

spent time in rehab for alcohol

poor people have a support group instead, it's called "drinking at bars"

Texting while driving, reckless driving, drunk driving: it's all wanton, anti-social behavior and shows a fundamental disregard for other people and whatever we have left of a social contract. Seeing people texting or talking on their cell phone while driving makes me furious. Hearing people bitch about getting busted by a speed camera pisses me off. Don't speed then! Fuck a drunk-driving apologist. I am far from perfect, but I know better than to do these things and have some kind of respect for the sanctity of life. I ride my bike to work and live in fear of these fuckers and it pisses me off.

I guess I should I add that I'm almost positive that the police officer who pulled me over had every intention of hauling me to jail. But when he asked about my out of state plates and I told him why I'm in Oklahoma, he just started lecturing me about what I had done. I was sure my life was about to end. But since then I've learned a lot of guys I work with were and continue to be pulled over while under the influence and are given breaks. I'm in no way saying this is justified in any way, but in rural america, there is a good ole boy system, that is just as frightening as the drunk drivers on the road.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110307/ap_on_re_us/us_distracted_driving

be safe out there

or buzza might have to.....

revive you!!

!!

i'll pick you up in the buzz-mobile

lol matt

just got home after driving down a busy street which two days ago boasted a checkpoint; I'd only drunk a scotch and a glass of wine, but, ugh, still terrified

http://lazyreviewzzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Welcome-To-LA-e1322884320377-150x120.jpg

dui decimal system

A few salient points and a whole bunch of stupid

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/04/opinions/wambach-driving-under-the-influence-opinion-cevallos/

which parts were salient and which were stupid

That guy is a straight up terrible writer, Ive read stories by him before.

The law here was recently changed to include drugs under the impairment testing. While I agree its a good idea, there's been some problems with it cz unlike booze, things like weed stay in your system for days after it's been had.

yeah he writes like he's on the high school paper

wow that article is horrible

btw non-poor people get away with or are barely sentenced for all kinds of crimes, and if you're in the right middle/upper class job that expands

there was a local man who must have had the worst drunken meltdown of all time and was in two drinking and driving accidents within 24 hours a couple years ago. he either wasn't supposed to be driving, or was supposed to be driving a vehicle with an ignition interlock, but he worked as a manager at a car dealer so he just grabbed a car off the lot

i worked in the vehicular homicide division of the da's office off somewhere. the laws are barely non-existent for drinking and driving crimes. i saw pictures of bodies that looked more like soup than humans, and people barely get 2 years in prison for stuff like that. long live car culture.

on the lighter side of things, an old guy was arrested on the other side of town a while back for driving his riding lawnmower back from the bar while shitfaced

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95qZtwJNjxk

was it this?

can't find the particular case, but this also happened in the same city: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2014/05/08/police-arrest-man-lawn-mower/8836745/

note that this dude was on a pretty busy street and it was right before rush hour

i feel like if this guy was writing an article on speeding tickets he'd have said "Most people don't even realize that the speed limit is only the maximum speed they are allowed to travel...and not a mandate".

also plenty of good reason for not having zero tolerance DUI BAL (ie meds/other factors that might trigger a non-zero but not intoxicated reading) that doesn't involve law enforcement not caring.

I almost got arrested for DUI (rightfully so) after totaling my car - p sure the last thing I was thinking was "man if only the law had been *more clear* I could have avoided this"

omg at that video

xpost to self, like I can tell you the whole reason why I drove drunk that night had everything to do with "I am knowingly being irresponsible right now and I am intentionally being self-destructive". real reasons people drive drunk = unlike crimes like robbery or murder etc, most people drink at one point or another and most people have cars. derrrp

Drunk

i worked in the vehicular homicide division of the da's office off somewhere. the laws are barely non-existent for drinking and driving crimes. i saw pictures of bodies that looked more like soup than humans, and people barely get 2 years in prison for stuff like that. long live car culture.

Fuck you, man, drunk drivers aren't like violent dangerous criminals who can't be rehabilitated.

I'm sure they'll be much less likely to drink again after the very therapeutic and educational environment of prison. God bless.

Fuck you, man, drunk drivers aren't like violent dangerous criminals who can't be rehabilitated.

My main issue is with car culture and the way cities/towns are designed, not people. I've driven drunk once or twice. I felt like shit about it, but sometimes you drink a little too much with friends or co-workers and the car's the only way to go. That's probably why the laws are so lax.

pretty sure I admitted elsewhere on ilx that during the absolute worst period of my life, I got arrested for driving while intoxicated, mercifully on a stretch of road where the only cars nearby were myself and the state trooper

so if there are any questions about the diversionary programs for people who were drunk but below the "this is way too drunk" limit, the court process, the required weekend lock-in counseling program (and the diversity of people there),, the months of monitored driving, and all that stuff, have at it

would actually be interested in hearing. months of monitored driving? how long?

ugh now this is gross: http://www.oregonlive.com/fifa-world-cup/index.ssf/2016/04/court_documents_reveal_that_so.html#incart_2box

not newsworthy in the least other than trying to shoehorn this detail in to imply that it's the latest in a series of 'deviant behaviors' when the drug use has fuck all to do with a DUI arrest a decade later. obv she's a public figure so the media will have at it, but just gross.

six, you have to stop in every once in a while to have the thing calibrated. only supposed to go to places necessary to your work commute, although you submit a list of what that entails and i imagine people who have to go multiple places for work can swing some leeway. i'm sure by now some places do some gps stuff? maybe not

who amongst us has not been part of a national women's sports team and tried some drugs xp

xpost wow. that is nuts.

just feel like jumping into this thread to say fuck drunk drivers before never checking it again, g'night

drive safe

really? dude it's drunk driving, you are lucky to drive a car at all xp

I wonder if, among a certain subset of people, uber availability in places with bad taxi service has helped this societal issue

then again, it might just be responsible people being able to get more hammered and just using uber

oh I get that, but it's just a bit diff than what they do here (probably why it's so scary to drive in FL).

for instance here, yes, you lose your license for a minimum of 180 days (maximum 1 year), but after you complete DUI school, they let you get a hardship exemption for business purposes if you apply for one. I don't think there's any monitoring of where you actually go although they do require you get an Ignition Interlock *if* your BAL is over .15 during the arrest.

don't feel like they're harsh enough here tho. I still can't believe they didn't arrest me as I got in a one vehicle accident w/ their wall (tho they didn't DUI test me, but probably had enough on suspicion given the gap of time between my 911 call and their arrival). one of many factors that scared me straight enough to cab everywhere when I drink now and to cut back on the drinking anyawy.