It is supposedly a personal moral failing every time someone drives too old, too tired, or too impaired, but if trains, busses, & walking were the default ways to get around then this chronic societal problem would diminish dramatically. For the vast majority of US citizens busses, trains, walking, biking, etc are not viable options because US infrastructure & city planning overwhelmingly neglects everything but the automobile.
Incompetent driving is rooted in systemic failures, not personal moral ones.
This is probably good justice, but idk if it’s going to reduce drunk driving.
It’s crazy to me that in America drunk driving (with no victims) isn’t a felony on its own. In Canada it’s their version of a felony and generally a way bigger deal. In America you seem to only have consequences when someone’s hurt.
Crazy that MADD was able to lobby to get all states to have 21 as the legal drinking age but not able to lobby to make drunk driving a felony because it’s too ingrained into America since people like going to bars but don’t wanna pay for cabs and have no other transit options.
I don’t disagree with drivers paying damages, but I see laws like this as whack-a-mole with symptoms of the problem of car dependency. Bars and restaurants serving alcohol with car dependent design is just a bad idea. No amount of laws is going to prevent drunk drivers from killing people as long as they remain the only way to get to or from places people consume alcohol.
Bike infrastructure needs physical separation. Bollards separating lanes at minimum. The average Joe would be financially WAY better off just renting trucks when they need one.
@knoland@Sensitivezombie@neanderthal That is an interesting idea, but also very urban-centric. For most of my life I lived in places that had no public transit. So even if I went to a bar that had transit, it wouldn't have gotten me home.
That is a law I can absolutely get behind. I’d go further and say that if they cause serious harm, they have to pay until the guardian can fully resume their duties to the child.
I’d go even farther. Getting into a car while drunk is a choice, so is getting drunk in the first place. That doesn’t happen by accident. Whether someone dies or gets hurt because of that is out of your control.
I am for judging by choices and actions, not by random consequences of these choices.
So regardless of whether someone gets hurt, the penalty needs to be as high as if someone got hurt. Because why would you not punish someone just because they got lucky?
Drunk driving is always about convenience or saving money (compared to getting a taxi), so the punishment must be so high, that it’s never the cheaper or more convenient option to drive drunk.
This is, sort of, already implemented where I live, in that the intoxicated driver is liable for loss of income, temporary or permanent, to any victims.
On the downside, judges tend to err under actual loss, and we don’t really have an effective “loss of enjoyment” concept. Such to say someone, who is injured but can continue to work at the same, wouldn’t be compensated for things like an injury precluding them from non-work damages; for example a skier victim who can no longer ski due to injuries
I’m quiet shocked it isn’t the case in the US or Texas already. I’m from Germany and if you harm anyone while being drunk or just stupid you have to pay for every problem you caused. E.g. falling asleep while driving, causing an accident and hurting a pregnant woman, damaging the infant maybe a brain damage or stuff, it would be calculated by statistics how much money the child won’t earn in life cause of you and you had to pay for every medical treatment for ever. Every cent not earned or spent because of your actions is yours to pay.
Yeah I am not typically in favor of punitive measures as a solution to a problem that could be solved by building robust public transit free at the point of use, but I have also had a lot of friends killed by drunk drivers so fuck them.
Add comment