Now I hate drink drivers as much as the next person especially since I was very nearly hit by one a week after I passed my test.
However, if you are caught drink driving you automatically lose your licence, you get fined and possible even lose your car depending on levels. The consequences could mean losing your job also.
Is this not a much harsher sentence than someone, say, found carrying a knife. Both have potential to maim or kill but with the knife you may get Community Service or a fine.
In a certain way, to me the sober person carrying the knife is perhaps a more deliberate action than the drunk person getting behind the wheel.
Thoughts?
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Getting behind the wheel drunk is always a deliberate action, you must known when sober you're going to go out and drink.
The only time its not is if you drive the day after thinking you're sober but there is no excuse for that. If I have a lot to drink the last before I simply don't drive the next day. If I know I have to drive the next day I either won't go out or won't drink much.
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Our DD laws are the one of the most severe in the world, Ok the permitted levels are higher than some, but then the sentences are higher.
There is no get out clause, you get caught you get banned, and as you say you can loose your job. Get caught again you get a longer ban and a bigger fine.
I think, and accident statistics bears this out compared with the rest of the world, we have it just about bang spot on right. It does not need tweaking or changing, its more than fit for purpose.
Would be nice if there were more coppers around to enforce it tho, cameras dont do that job.
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Ok - What if I was to say get "get caught by drink driving and lose your licence forever" that’s it - no buts - tough!!
Would that be fair, or unfair? - a driving licence is not a right.
I am responsible for every action I take - Therefore If I have a drink I do not drive it’s a simple as that. I know FOR FACT that I am never going to be prosecuted for drink driving because I don't do it.
Before everyone slates me as a self righteous pompous git. Say what you like, It’s true I will not drink and drive and it’s my opinion and I am sticking by it.
However if the above was true – how many drink drivers would there be? –on the flip side you could argue that there would be a lot more banned drivers taking to the wheel as a result.
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>> Before everyone slates me as a self righteous pompous git. Say what you like, It’s
>> true I will not drink and drive and it’s my opinion and I am sticking
>> by it.
You can hang them if you like, but with so few coppers around the gallows are pretty vacant. Unless you do something daft you are never going to get caught. And of course if you have done something daft its too late then. The ways its enforced our DD laws are a stable door syndrome.
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>> Ok - What if I was to say get "get caught by drink driving and
>> lose your licence forever" that’s it - no buts - tough!!
>>
>> Would that be fair, or unfair? - a driving licence is not a right.
Unfair I think; there's got to be some proportionality about these things.
Other mandatory sentences don't work that well as exemplified by the current legal debate over life for murder.
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The laws certainly are severe but to what extent, and with what frequencies are the severe sentences imposed? Home Secretary jack Straw initiated a "3 Strikes and you get life" policy for burglars and I don't think the number of crims who fell foul of this reached double figures and it has quietly been dropped.
Last edited by: Meldrew on Thu 8 Dec 11 at 16:38
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Those who never drive after even a single small drink are afraid that they can't trust their own driving when they have had a drink. They are quite right to play safe.
My guess though is that people with that rigid attitude either don't like drinking much (e.g. Humph) or more rarely, drink like fish but don't like driving (the oft-ratted Ratto). In neither case are they justified in forcing their extremism on others though.
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I would never force it on anybody, but at the same time if you have 15 pints in a club and start driving at 7:00am don't expect me to have sympathy if you get caught.
Also by not driving the day after I can force myself to have a day off from driving and use my legs for once.
I think attitudes from my generation are drink driving is really bad but for older people who grew up drinking a few pints for the road it is different. What is more worrying is it seems the new younger generation (e.g 18 year olds) are now booking the trend and are getting caught more for drink driving :(.;
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I disagree
1st I’m not enforcing my views on anyone – I gave my opinion then asked a question, nor am I in any position to alter any law in this country. So someone who is in a position to change/create laws probably doesn’t give a stuff what I think anyway.
2nd Maybe then I should change my original statement to “cause death by drink driving” as far as I’m aware once you have served your time – you can still have a licence. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
Maybe then that person who caused death by drink driving can’t handle a two tonne death trap when they are intoxicated and as such inevitably will ruin a lot of people’s lives – however you don’t know that until the event has happened.
I like driving and I like a drink I can have a drink within the legal limits and drive perfectly fine – I just choose not to. I want to be a train driver It’s not even acceptable to drive a train when hung-over I don’t think that it should make any difference (driving a car under the influence of alcohol)
I’ve never thought I had extremist views – However don’t worry I’m not into brainwashing people just yet and have not joined any cult – not my idea of fun
Last edited by: Redviper on Thu 8 Dec 11 at 17:08
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OP: "Now I hate drink drivers as much as the next person..."
Bit strong, no?
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I spent a night in the cells once.
Famously documented on the HJ site.
I met HenryK a few weeks afterwards, and we discussed the circumstances. Was I over? Yep. Was I rat-assed? Nope.
Did Henry and I have a few beers that day? Yes.
Were we drunk? Not according to us.
Have I been 'over' since? Probably. But not a gibbering wreck.
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>>Was I rat-assed? <<
I claim sexual discrimination:)
How come Ian can say that but I can't say that word beginning with B that you always tell me off about!
It's not fair:)
Pat
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8< snip - bypassing of the swearfilter not allowed. See forum policy
Other stuff removed for same breach. Unfortunately some innocent posts might have been caught in the removal. Sorry for those who kept on topic
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 10 Dec 11 at 00:22
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Back to the original story, before we crept into the gutter...
I'm a firm beleiver in the American 'sobriety test' - stand on one leg, walk a straight line, recite the alphabet backwards etc etc etc.
this random blow-above-this-number nonsense is a crazy situation - I've seen big blokes giggly after a beer, and skinny waif women totally in control after a gallon of champers.
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>> Back to the original story, before we crept into the gutter...
>>
>> I'm a firm beleiver in the American 'sobriety test' - stand on one leg, walk
>> a straight line, recite the alphabet backwards etc etc etc.
>> this random blow-above-this-number nonsense is a crazy situation - I've seen big blokes giggly after
>> a beer, and skinny waif women totally in control after a gallon of champers.
That test, frankly is a load of cobblers, and the reason that drink driving in the states is rife.,
Anyway, I cant pass it sober.
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I can recite the alphabet backwards, it's my party piece:)
Pat
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as long as it isn't reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards, pda...
Oooh, but what a party THAT would be!
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Goodness... mediaeval EuroMuti is it? Worse than I thought.
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>> Goodness... mediaeval EuroMuti is it? Worse than I thought.
>>
Prancing naked round a fire at midnight - you haven't lived!
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>> I can recite the alphabet backwards, it's my party piece:)
>>
>> Pat
>>
Ditto. Father 'learnt' me. Teacher would let me get nearly there and then whack me for being a clever so and so.....
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>> I can recite the alphabet backwards, it's my party piece:)
>>
>> Pat
>>
Why would one want to be able to do that unless of course the plan was to go DUI in the USA :-)
My best attempt would be reading it .
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...Why would one want to be able to do that unless of course the plan was to go DUI in the USA...
Or in Pat's case, IUD in the ASU.
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Sorry Dave....'tis the season to be jolly though:)
Pat
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>> 8< snip - bypassing of the swearfilter not allowed. See forum policy
>>
>> Other stuff removed for same breach. Unfortunately some innocent posts might have been caught in
>> the removal. Sorry for those who kept on topic
>>
well, hush my mouth.
By definition, motorists must be adults. yet the use of words which one hears 50 times a day is disallowed.
Puritan moderators FTL.
Last edited by: Ian (Cape Town) on Sat 10 Dec 11 at 13:58
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>> Puritan moderators FTL.
I don't think they are necessarily Ian. Those are the school rules after all.
It's true that while the Beak was out at lunch yesterday that little Jarpie devil managed to smuggle a stink bomb into class causing restlessness among the spivs, hooligans and idlers some of whom have been in the lower fifth (formrly called the 'remove') for three years or longer and have grown moustaches. And there's a girl there as well who can really stir it.
Naturally when the Beak got back after lunch and found the place in bedlam with the yobbos of the remove chucking paper darts, pouring ink down each others' necks and making rude noises he went straight to the back of the class shouting and laying about him with a meaty hand.
I complained to my mother when I got home but she too whomped me upside the head and uttered a stream of humiliating insults. It just isn't fair. Some of us are plotting a mass murder outrage with peashooters.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 10 Dec 11 at 14:20
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By all means, don't let it descend into mayhem, but after a while (In my experience) fora tend to sort themselves out, and find a common level of what is acceptable.
having said that, nanny filters at various companies will get a bit miffed if we continually say ******, **** and ****.
So I shall desist.
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I haven't been called a girl for years AC, you've made me feel quite young and sprightly again:)
Pat
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>> young and sprightly again:)
... yeah, I was saying that girl really knows how to stir it. Tomboy type you know? Her language would make a Soho vice squad detective constable blush and she's dead rough in the playground.
Nineteen if she's a day, smokes fags, always covered in oil and works out of her dodgy cousin Zeke's breaker's yard at weekends, fly-tipping toxic waste and hot stolen parts...
:o}
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That's not too far off the mark AC:)
RP has no chance of turning me into a lady!
Pat
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Or Dave, but I think he knows that :)
Pat
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>> By definition, motorists must be adults.
Yet most swearing I hear nowadays is done by children and teenagers. As an adult you should be responsible enough to know when and when not to do it. Anyone can read this and other forums, not just adults. Even some adults don't want to be subjected to swearing all the time. In fact from past comments made by people here, the lack of cursing and swearing is why they enjoy reading and contributing to the forum.
>> yet the use of words which one hears 50 times a day is disallowed.
All the more reason not to make it 51 then. How about starting a trend to reduce the number instead of increasing it?
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We've had this discussion before.I have seen Trawlers leaving this port fourty years ago where the crew was still intoxicated from the prvious night ashore.Then in the morning thinking about the wintertrip to Iceland facing the weather.You needed a drink to survive.
I agree A.C difficult this subject.
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Drink Driving Penalties - RattleandSmoke
