Who said the following, and why would such information be desirable?
“Biometric detection or identification will work like a thumbprint to identify and also give us an idea of who the driver is…”
Is this a spokesman for an armored car company? Is this a provider of innovative new technology for police cars? Is this the owner of a taxicab company? Is it the CEO of Avis? No.
Is this a proponent of a new social engineering scheme?
Well, it’s something like that.
I can hardly wait for this new “feature.”
It won’t effect me any more since I quit driving drunk. I only go to bars that are reachable by either walking or from public transportation.
How many nannystatists who oppose “racial profiling” will be just fine making millions of people who’ve never been convicted of a crime—many of whom don’t even drink—blow into a tube every time they try to start their cars.
And of course, when the blackmarket for air pumps or somebody else’s lung capacity gets big enough, we’ll need a new set of laws.
Like, i dunno’—keeping hand pumps for inflating footballs behind the pharmacy counter.
Civil liberties defenders. Uh huh.
I love the biometrics part. Add GPS tracking to that, and Big Brother will be able to keep a close eye on all of us.
Oh, we’ll be so safe!
The first time some woman is murdered by an assailant because her car wouldn’t start so she could flee him should put paid to this idea.
Maybe they can double-rig these things to prevent cars from starting if you’ve eaten transfats or smoked a cigarette. Or had a classic Coke. Or you aren’t wearing your seatbelt. Or your helmet.
Or you are morbidly obese. Or you have peanut residue on you.
THINK OF HOW CLEAN AND SAFE THE WORLD WILL BE WITHOUT ALL THE DAMN PEOPLE MUSSING IT UP!
We could put balloon-fence defense systems around every car . . .
I second the balloon-fence system. Think of all the incoming missiles that it’ll stop. Perfect for that morning commute.
Just do away with internal combustion engines, electrify all the highways, and make everyone drive bumper cars. Drunks would be fun then.
Surround every car with a huge earthen berm. If you aren’t sober enough to transit the berm, you can’t drive.
“Nick, who would murder someone, cut of both their hands and rip out their lungs in the car park of a bar.”
“Beats me Gill”
OOOOOO, I like this idea B Moe!
Beer tap, right on the dashboard!
Put the bars on wheels – Home delivery – solves the whole mess….besides I’m not sure a drunken balloon fence would work…..
Fuck em if they can’t take a joke. I should have called them Republican jackbooted thugs and fascists and then everything would have been ok.
If I had that interlock, I might have missed work that night. Hindsight is always 20 20.
Now excuse me. I have to have a teary press conference and announce I am going into rehab.
– That’s it!!!! “Mobile Liquer stores”(tm)
BECAUSE OF THE UREKA!!!!!
I think I’m going to sit this one out … I’m just not quite ready to joke about it …
(having processed way too many cases where the drunk lives and the people in the other car(s) die horrible, excrutiating deaths … and having seen BAC’s of .3 and above)
Naaaaah, that’s no good.
How am I going to pick up drunken chicks if I stay home?
I oppose this from a horror movie perspective. If I’m being chased by genetically engineered velociraptor ghosts, I want my car to start and get the hell out of dodge. Other than that, the only problem I have is that MAD sometimes promotes ridiculously low BAC limits, and a couple glasses of wine should NOT leave me stranded for an hour, unable to use a car I paid real dollars for. Oh yeah, the condescending arrogance too. love that
Whatever happened to the 70’s when you couldn’t buy a DWI?
Drunks are dangerous and need to be dealt with if they are on the road. But .08? I haven’t had a drink in almost ten years, but I bet I could still blow a .08.
I am joining Damm (Drivers against mad mothers). It was a great thing when MADD first showed up, because there was no enforcement of DWI’s, but like everything else successful, they have gone INSANE. I think that the legal limit should be .01, so that if you eat pasta with a vodka sauce, YOU GO TO JAIL!!
And how many people do we all know that don’t have to be drunk to drive like an asshole? Why do they get a pass? What about the bim that mashed my car because her brakes were squeaking, and she didn’t want to put too much pressure on them?
Drunk is drunk, but .08 is absitively, posolutley ridiculous.
“How am I going to pick up drunken chicks if I stay home?”
– The same way you normally do – by taping 100 dollar bills all over your body….
First off, I have no problem with making first time DUIers have an interlock device. Driving is not a right.
I do NOT support this kind of device as a standard for all cars/drivers.
Here’s another thought. Those convicted of drunk driving don’t get the legal right to drink for whatever length of probation (make them get a new id card and every establishment that serves/sells alcohol cards everyone)
Darleen, I don’t think there are very many good arguments against any of the various “nasty” measures that could be taken against chronic drunk drivers, but LostDog is right.
MADD has just gone over the edge. Heck, even its founder resigned.
And beneath the MADD hysteria:
Facts:
Fatalities per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled
1994: 1.73 2005: 1.47
Fatalities per 100,000 Population
1994: 15.64 2005: 14.66
Fatalities per 100,000 Registered Vehicles
1994: 21.15 2004: 18.00
Fatalities per 100,000 Licensed Drivers
1994: 23.21 2004: 21.54
Yes the evile drunk drivers are coming to kill us all. “We’ve found a witch, may we burn her?”
Am I the only one who keeps a midget in the trunk to blow air into that hose for me?
You all can be as fucking amusing as you want, but drunks kill people. Every fleeting day. Jeff, I am ashamed of you; given what has happened in Denver recently. You really need to sit in the box. I like my wine just fine, but I wouldn’t dream of getting behind the wheel of a death machine. I have a system: if I’m high, nobody’s allowed to tell me where I left my keys.
I bet if we outlawed women drivers, we could cut auto accidents in half.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
BIGOT!!….errrr…..LTTLEOT!!
Oh, that went over my head! Funny! P.S. Please don’t drive. Hate to see you in court,
So do Islamic extremists, and sober drivers, and accidents, and improperly used power tools, and disease.
Do all of these require a nanny-statist solution too?
And you can be the opposite—but please don’t abuse the privilege.
OK, I concede that anyone can do anything at anytime, as long as it’s justified by someone, somewhere. Whew, my mind’s clear and rosy.
I’m wondering how the nannystatists are going to protect us from the stairs, lawnmowers, bathtubs, etc. Good Gawd. Not only do we have to worry about Abdul al Dangerous, we also have to not get run over by our own lawnmower.
Will it ever end?
“Eat right, stay fit, die anyway”
–George Carlin
As usual, cynn, you miss the point. No one here is advocating drunk driving. Neither do we advocate shrill, advocacy groups who go beyond the bounds of common sense in seeing that what they term as “good” is a mandate for all. That’s why we have legislatures, executives, and courts, you see.
For further examples of this phenomenon, reference any global warming discussion. And before you characterize the fight against islamobozos as another variant–here is the key difference–the islamobozos acutually say what their objectives are.
I know one thing, I’d rather share the road with someone blowing .01, than someone talking on the phone.
um, blowing .1 I mean.
jdm
What constitutes a “chronic” drunk driver?
I don’t want to assume every person out there is drinking and driving, so I do not support this device as standard equipment.
But let me give you some anecdotal observation.
I work in a DA office in So.Cal (not LA county). Our misdemeanor pretrial calender runs about 120 cases a day (mon-thur). A good 1/3 of them are DUI (VC23152a & b counts)
ONE THIRD … which doesn’t count all the direct file DUI’s which the def pled guilty to at arraignment.
And they aren’t “wobblers” (BAC of .08-.09 which the DDA will plead out to a wet reckless)
A felony DUI will only be filed on the FOURTH one (hopefully before the idiot kills someone)
It’s only about the 3rd dui that a judge will order an interlock device.
I think it would be appropriate to order ‘em for the “first” timer. Cuz its not really the first time they drove drunk, its just the first time they were caught.
wishbone, I had an eloquent response, but I went to check it and it disappeared, Suffice it to say that I resent being tossed into the “as usual” category. All I’m saying is that it’s sad that you all would make light of a horrific problem.
lee
They’re working on it. Handsfree or get a ticket.
Last year two of my daughters were hit when a guy blew a red light
while text messaging on his cell phone.
Good God.
I don’t have a damned problem shackling drunks to the bar until they drown or whatever turns you on with regard to DUIs… but when you go trying to foist requirements on people who don’t even drink, you’ve just become an idiot and a scumbag.
Just line up with the gun banners, the video-game banners, and the TV censors, and start asking for pre-emptive arrests of all people who have hands on the grounds that they might strangle someone.
MAPME* should quit trying to expand their domain and either stick to education and publicity or just give it a rest.
Just because some people are a problem doesn’t mean you get to punish everyone to make yourself feel better. Go see a therapist and leave innocent people the hell alone.
* Mothers Against Pretty Much Everybody
oh
btw lee
Drunks have this tendency to turn the car in the direction of where they are looking
I hate to tell you how many people…including cops…are killed when they are off on the side of the freeway with their hazard lights/lightbars blinking…and some drunk plows into them at 80 mph.
Oh dear, I’ve gone and given Aunt Pitty Pat the vapors.
If it is truly horrific, cynn–then why do the all the indicators I referenced above indicate that we (that includes you, too) are safer driving today than ten years ago? Inconvenient, huh?
Darleen, et al that object so much to drunk driving:
The real reason drunk driving doesn’t plummet is pretty much akin to what Darleen recounted above re: the fubared legal system.
If these idiots had to give complete compensation to their victims, in so far as possible, then you can bet at least some of them would be less likely to drive drunk.
How about a drunk crashes into someone and only wrecks their car. Then the victim gets a replacement value from the drunk. Maybe the victim takes the drunks unbusted car, maybe the victim is accompanied by a Sheriffs deputy and goes to the drunks house and picks out equivalent value in personal property, while the drunk has to watch. If injuries are involved then the penalty goes up very quickly. The drunk pays LIST of the treatment costs, the balance between what the victim really pays and LIST for treaments is split between the medical provider and the victim. If someone dies as a result you can choose between death penalty or indentured servitude for life. The drunk must live in public housing, have no personal goods whatsoever, must wear clothing identifying them as a murdering drunk and is employed at some assigned employment. They only get room and board (3 square, nutritious, bland and lifeless meals per day) for the rest of their lives. Then televise their life. No anonymity at all.
Believe me I sympathize with people that hate drunk and distracted drivers. I commute on a motorcycle from Colorado Springs to North Denver every day and not a week goes by that some imbecile doesn’t try to pull over into the lane I’m in while I’m still in it. I’d like to see those jackasses charged with attempted assault or maybe attempted vehicular homicide and spend 30 days in the cooler. Maybe they’d pay a little attention to what they are doing instead of risking thier lives and the lives of others. But with out real penalties for hurting someone else from their drunken or inattentive behavior no breathalyzer will change them.
wishbone: we’re cool. Just try not to drive when I’m on the road. Peace out.
I think cynn just ignored the whole part about installing breathalyzers in ALL cars and is now stewing because she thinks that people who object to penalizing the innocent must be protecting the guilty.
It’s a common failing, it is.
RC
Well, when the drunk is an illegal alien who is driving a $500 car with no insurance, lives as one of 15 to rented house and sends most of his under-the-table cash wages back to Meh-hee-co, then a victim is not going to get a lot.
Victims ARE entitled (in CA) to restitution, for actual losses. Since much of that is paid for by the vic’s own insurance, then any restitution from the vic is whatever the insurance company wants to try and collect.
I drink about two fingers of good single malt a night. At home.
You’re safe from my standard ignition vehicle, cynn.
I don’t believe handsfree helps anything (it seems I’ve heard of studies that found the same, but I’m too lazy to dig up links, sorry),the problem isn’t that both hands aren’t on the wheel, the problem is that the drivers mind is on the conversation, not on the 2 ton hunk of iron they are hurling down the crowded road.
I had a head on with a guy going about 50mph, he was looking down at his keypad at the time. Lucky for me I was in a road grader at the time, didn’t even spill my coffee. Ruined his day though. Totaled his brand new pick-up, I think it had less that 1000 miles on it. HA!
lee
I’m feeling lazy too, but is handsfree any more distracting then talking with the person next to you?
IIRC I heard a report on the top five causes of driver distraction…and children ranks about 3rd!
Maybe we should have car manufacturers install a Cone of Silence for the backseat?
Darleen,
Logic says it shouldn’t be any more distracting, but cell phones seem to take some people to a far away place. Maybe it takes more concentration to carry on a phone conversation due to lack of visual clues or something, I don’t know.
I don’t think phones should be outlawed in cars or anything, I’m just saying distractions are probably as big a killer as DUI.
I also think DUI should be raised to .1, and the penalties made much more severe, first offences about what they are, but second offences get a year in jail, five year suspension of licence, third offence ten years, and no licence ever.
– Maybe this will tend to harsh everyones mellow, and I won’t comment on the advisability of this or that contrivance to try to stem the worst possible of needless death, but after doing more than my share of both commercial, and normal driving, all it takes is one time of having to pull the mangled body of what was once a beautifle 7 year old child out of the twisted steel of her family’s sedan, and everything you ever needed to know to never drive wasted will be answered. The Christmas tree survived.
BBH – when I see someone who advocates driving drunk, I will pass on your story. Or maybe the one about my best friend being killed by a lousy drunk driver when I was 12 years old.
Unfortunately, this is one of those subjects where (at least) one side always argues right past the other.
Just in case it’s clear, I’m objecting to installing breathalyzers (one more piece of expensive equipment that can fail and leave you stranded) in the cars of people who haven’t been convicted of anything, as the linked article suggested.
As it appears most of us here are doing.
I know it’s a sensitive subject for a lot of people… but obviously so is overwhelming state control of people’s lives – you may have noticed a few fatalities from that over the last century or so.
And until some magic wizard draws a bright line between freedom and totalitarianism, we have to resist each senseless restriction, because it will be used as justification for the next.
– Merovign – I didn’t write that you or anyone is advocating anything, nor am I arguing anything. I was emphasing that, as in most things, personal experience can usually straighten out any confusions a person might have when you’re convinced “it can’t happen to you”. Just a sober reminder on the eve of the holiday season, pun intended.
People are joking about this here not because drunk driving is funny, but because the solution that MADD is advocating is absurd.
The problem that MADD is experiencing is that it has been successful, incredibly successful. They have educated that part of the population that can be educated. The casual drunk driver who happened to just go to the bar one Saturday afternoon to watch a basketball game isn’t really the problem. He has gotten the message, the bars have gotten the message. What you have left is (for the most part) the hard-core drunks, the guys and gals who won’t listen, who can’t be educated, who will get cranked everyday and drive. These need to be taken off the road. This plan of MADD’s is absurd because it hits everyone and not just the hard cases that need to be hit.
It’s a serious problem; no one was laughing at that. What they were laughing at was the solution; and like m-bots balloon defense line, it deserves the horselaugh.
Just gotta something, eh Darleen?
Such thinking has destroyed liberty in this nation. Risk cannot be eliminated by statute.
For the weepers–
Anecdotes of personal tragedy have no place in a conversation on general principles. It is dishonest spin that pretends there is no legitimate response, a popular fallacy. The first to relate such loses the argument.
Do you have a cellphone? Rental Car? No need to add much.
Yes, I do. GPS is enabled only for 911 dialing, and should I choose to not reveal my location, I can just turn the damned thing off.
No. I have a car that I own. On the occassions where I do rent a car, then I have someone else’s car, which I’ve paid to borrow. They can put whatever they like in it, as they own it, and I can choose to do business with them or not.
There was no need to add any of that.
This sounds alot like this California Big Brother Tax Thought
I have the same reaction to the above “overreaction.” The fact that many years ago, on a lonely Conn. road, I was first to a scene of a horrific 2 car head on in which both drivers were drunk and 4 young people were dead is a permanent wound on my psych but not relevant to the core discussion.
Basic principles of liberty trump the idea that we must do everything that we can to solve a particular situation. No matter how draconian the solution there will still be people killed in alchohol related accidents. Doing all that we can to alleviate this problem is not the same as doing everything that we can. Like most issues, there is a balancing act between the real cost of the of the problem and the consequences of the solution.
Aggresively charge and convict those who consistantly drink and drive, hit first timers hard so that they won’t do it again and do all of this without shackling the rest of us with a Big Brother system run by a government agency that may be circumvented by the DUI’ers or malfunction for the rest of us. Brett is right, this is a principle question as well as a problem/solution question.
I have a great respect for what MADD has accomplished over the years and appreciate that my kids have reaped the benefits of better education and tougher laws. Like many advocacy groups, MADD has become so single-minded in its crusade that they’ve lost much of their perspective of the world at large.
Agreed. The only place the police have an easy job is in a police state.
As for the “biometrics”, didn’t one big municipality get rid of their face-matching software that was hooked up to their security cameras, because it just didn’t work?
BJTexs,
Right. They’re also victims of their own success. These groups become living entities unto themselves with a need to perpetuate their existence above and beyond the reasons they came into being. I’ve been involved with several advocacy organizations and my ultimate desire has always been to get them to the point of retiring them due to the lack of continuing need.
But then you take a look at groups like MADD, and their nearly $55 million in annual revenue (2005). Who’s going to declare victory and walk away while a cash cow like that is grazing the meadow?
Darleen,
My suggestion about drunk drivers applies to illegals as well. Maybe more so. The one caveat I left out is that insurance companies should be able to legally claim irresponsibility on the part of the insured and opt out of paying off.
In the cases you cite the drunk is held in involuntary servitude until compensation is paid. Again, cheap public housing, cheap but nutritious food, clothing that declares to one and all the person is a convicted drunk driver, if current job doesn’t work out then assigned job duties, absolutely no cash, all pay to go to the harmed party.
Pablo
Agreed. The end result, too often is that the “misery quotient” trumps the individual liberty questions because, darn it, we have to do something. Mix in the extreme emotional aspect (both real and pumped) and anyone who raises the principle objection gets shouted down as some kind of heartless barbarian.
There are times when tunnel vision and self serving are good things. This is not one of them.
cynn —
Faux outrage doesn’t faze me, as you should know by now. I was horrified by the death of that mother and her two children in Denver last week. I had to turn off the news coverage and go up and watch my son sleep.
None of which has anything to do with making everybody who gets into a car blow into a tube beforehand.
Those deaths were horrible. The person who caused them is a criminal and should be beaten with a baseball bat, as far as I’m concerned. And yes, it’s even possible that putting a tube into his pickup might have prevented him from driving drunk.
None of which is the point of my response. Which is precisely this: you simply cannot preemptively prevent every criminal act and pretend you still have liberty.
And the slippery slope fallacy is—when it comes to nannystatists, junk scientists, and cause crusaders—not a fallacy. Instead, they seem to use each legislative success as a stepping stone for overreach.
Remember when the tobacco companies were being sued? We were told at the time (when we pointed out that the gun manufacturers and the fast food industries would be next) that our slippery slope arguments were absurd and unfounded.
Now tell me. Were they?
I am not advocating drunk driving. I am saying that drunk driving is already criminal. But zero tolerance policies and preemptive measures that could potentially imperil the innocent (what if these devices malfunction and one is left stranded, as a commenter points out above)are not the answer.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And for me, hell is the nannystate.
Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi has a book coming out on the nannystate that I read through for him. The chapter on MADD is pretty enlightening. David will be setting up a blog soon, and when he does, I’ll be sure to link up to it so we can continue these kinds of discussions.
But as I’ve been telling people all along, I am a classical liberal, not a social conservative; and so I find the spectre of “remedies” like this one frightening, anathema as they are to individual liberty.
And speaking of local Colorado politics, I was sad to see the marijuana initiative fail. I haven’t smoked weed in ages, but I continue to find it amazing that we fear the effects of cannibis.
Perhaps if we made people blow into a tube to check for Cool Ranch Doritos residue before they drove, that would alleviate people’s fears?
– Well just for the record my position on anything that trys to achieve personal responsibility by feit is doomed, and just adds to the confusion, having the added charm of hobbling yet another liberty.
– Guess what it comes down to is if we’re going to act like children, we can expect someone, somewhere, to try to treat the public like children.
– My memory is a little sketchy on this, but didn’t the gal that used to lead MADD, one of the originators, quit a while back because she said they weren’t being “aggressive” enough?
– Maybe the Jihadists should just give every adult in America a new car, and a life time supply of gas, and oil. Our own self inflicted alaughter on the nations highways seems to work better for their cause than Jihad.
– “slaughter”, and decidedly, no laughing matter.
– Oh and Brett… I’ll keep your words of wisdom in mind if I choose to give my buds (and myself) a reminder around the holidays. Call me old fashioned, but a few cat calls, and muttered bitching, beats the crap out of having to identify their remains at the County morgue every time.
– Just saying…..
BBh
From the link above: jdm 1:57PM
Jeff:
I am a Reagan Conservative (social conservative doesn’t work for me) which menas I’m an anti -Abortion, Christian Conservative. I also have a brain that says legislating alchohol prohibition is a proven failure and boring into my life with GPS and biometrics in my own car is contrary to my liberty principles and my understanding of the Constitution. Some of us wacky Rapture yokels do practice separation of church and state, at least in as far as our government is secular in nature and operation but religious in heritage.
It isn’t really all that hard (although I’m in between on the cannabis initiatives.)
Just making sure you know that cell phone tracking isn’t just by GPS. I suppose you could choose not to own or use your cell phone, like I choose not to have a car. hooray for classically liberal personal freedom!
BJTexs —
I have complete respect for Christian conservatives, provided they don’t emulate “progressives” and attempt to legislate from the bench.
To me, we saw just that when Scalia ruled in Raich. Read Thomas’ dissent, which is closer to legal conservatism, the way I see it. I think Thomas is the closest thing to a Constitutionalist on the bench—though I’m still waiting to see with Alito. Roberts is fairminded, but I fear he shows too much deference to stare decisis.
But at least none of them are Harriet Miers.
Shout out to Brett
Hey, bud, where the f**k did you read into any of my comments that I support sticking interlock devices on cars as standard equipment?
Jaysus… some reading comprehension .. PLEASE!
Daleen,
Bad day?
Nancy Grace is dripping!
Jeff;
I’d never read the Raich case (medical marijuanna in /california) but these words in Thomas’ dissent resonate with me:
(emphasis mine)
A quick read of Scalia’a affirm seems to indicate that he the was searching for excuses within Commerce to apply said law in a particular way in this cased. He appears to toss much of his closely held constructionist principles to leap out at this particular issue. You probably have a more nuanced opinion. The more cases like this that I read, the more I become convinced that states need to get much of their power back from the Feds and the courts.
I have questions about legalization and medicinal uses, but am content to let the states decide these issues.
Thanks for the tip.
As I see it, commerce has changed since the founding—has become more national, has more national effects. And so congress’s power has grown according to commerce’s growth.
actus
I agree with what you’ve said but it’s incomplete as to your response to Thomas’ dissent. His point as I see it (and I’m not a lawyer) is that it is a big stretch even under the evolutionary rules of interstate commerce to apply an intrastate connection to someone growing a class IV drug in their own home for their own use without any financial transactions taking place or any freight being shipped. I happen to agree with that contention, which suggests that if the Feds felt that strongly about it, they should have used a different criteria for bringing the case. However, it didn’t matter as the court, once again, elected to stick its nose into what looks to be a reasonable matter for the state to decide.
How do you see this speaking as a lawyer?
The technology that allows cell phones to operate, by it’s very nature, also allows for your approximate location to be divulged. It cannot function without it, any more so than your landline does. A car has no such functional requirement and adding such capability does not enhance the vehicle’s functionality. Also, cell phones don’t record the user’s biometric data.
That’s an odd cheer, given that you seem to be arguing against it. But then, you’re actus and illogic is par for your course.
tw: feet35
Can you fit that many in your yap?
Sure, by nature its divulged. But its not necessary for it to be recorded / remembered. Nor given away to anyone who asks.
Well, it does divulge its location by the fact that you can see it. Its just that nobody records it. But there are new functions coming along, like gps navigation and on-board computers, that are going to be recording.
Because like a child’s security blanket, it doesn’t really protect you.
Uh, billing.
Recording what? For whose access?
Classically liberal personal freedom does not protect you. I’ll have to remember that, actus.
I got convicted for my 3rd dui in ‘01’.In conneticut that means a lifetime suspension,which you could appeal aftr 5yrs.After 4 and a half yrs. I called the D.M.V to see what I had to do to get mobile.They then informed me that the law had been changed in ‘04’.Instead of 5yrs. it’s now 10yrs before I can beg to get a licence.Thats 2011 folks.Since the D.M.V doesnt recognize a grandfather clause they added 5yrs of bullshit and there is nothing I can do about it.None of my DUI’s involved accidents or injurys.I’ve already done about 2yrs in prison for under suspensions which costs the state about 20,000 a yr.When Im in prison I’m not working so they are also missing out on my taxes.I also live in the country where there is no public trans.Somebody should rethink this bullshit!