Mark Daniels, a British pub owner, had an interesting op-ed piece recently in the Publican about the UK considering lowering their BAC limit. In Drink Driving — It’s a Number’s Game, Daniels laments that “lowering the amount of alcohol allowed in blood before driving won’t stop people being killed on the road. It’ll just mean more deaths get attributed to drink driving than ever before, and ruin more lives in the process.”
That’s certainly what’s happened in the U.S., since thanks to MADD we moved from age 18 in many states to 21 as the minimum drinking age in all states (with a few limited exceptions) with the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, making us the most puritan of all the first-world nations. MADD, of course, claims this had led to safer roads, but the first mandatory seat belt law was also passed in 1984 and today all but one state has some type of mandatory seat belt law not to mention the 1980s is also when car companies began focusing more on car safety. Certainly, there are numerous studies that call into question MADD’s claim. But all it really did was create more criminals by turning responsible people aged 18-21 who continued to drink automatically into villains.
But that wasn’t nearly enough, they continued lobbying to have the BAC lowered from 0.1% to 0.08% and in “2000, this standard was passed by Congress and by 2005, every state had an illegal .08% BAC limit.” This had the effect once again of criminalizing more people while not really addressing the problem. The recidivist drunk drivers were not the ones in between 0.08% and 0.1%, but people who drank enough to blow 0.15% or above, the true problem drinkers. But MADD’s still not done and has their sight’s set on 0.05%. Naturally, they’ve wasted no time taking credit once again for the positive effects, despite their not really being any.
Here’s Wikipedia’s collaborative take:
However, NHTSA’s definition of “alcohol-related” deaths includes all deaths on U.S. highways involving any measurable amount of alcohol (i.e. >0.01% BAC) in any person involved, including pedestrians. In 2001, for example, the NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System estimated an annual total of 17,448 alcohol-related deaths. The NHTSA breakdown of this estimate is that 8,000 deaths involved only a single car and in most of those cases the only death was the drunk driver, 5,000 sober victims were killed by legally drunk drivers, and there were 2,500 to 3,500 crash deaths in which no driver was legally drunk but alcohol was detected. Furthermore, some of the sober victims undoubtedly included those willing passengers of the drunk drivers. It should also be noted that vehicle safety has been improved since the 1980s, and this has likely resulted in a decrease in all auto fatalities, including alcohol-related deaths. Also, public attitudes are more negative toward drunk driving than they were in the early 1980s. The data also uses raw numbers rather than per capita rates. That being said, however, the number of “alcohol-related” deaths have dropped more so than non-alcohol-related ones (which actually increased in the late 1980s), which shows that the decrease in the former largely drove the substantial decrease in the total fatalities since 1982. It should also be noted that with the increasing age of the baby boomer generation,if you look at statistics on alcohol related crashes among consistent age groups (20-30 in 1985 versus 20-30 in 2005) there are no statistically significant changes in the number of drunk driver related deaths. In 1999, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluated the effectiveness of state .08% BAC laws in reducing the number and severity of crashes involving alcohol. It stated, “Overall, the evidence does not conclusively establish that .08% BAC laws, by themselves, result in reductions in the number and severity of alcohol-related crashes.”
In other words, lowering the limit just led to more arrests and criminalized people but without actually addressing or fixing the problem of drunk driving. It was MADD’s increasingly neo-prohibitionist behavior that led founder Cathy Lightner to leave MADD in 1985. She has since spoken out against the direction the organization has taken. Now the UK is apparently considering the same draconian measures.
Here’s Daniels’ essay, almost in its entirety, though the whole piece can be read at the Publican:
[The UK Government’s] proposal is that the current limit of 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood be reduced to 50mg. This would bring us in to line with many other European countries and, Sir Peter believes, up to 300 lives could be saved by bringing in such a ruling.
I fear, however, that many more could be ruined by its introduction.
The review, which was initially commissioned by a government so health & safety obsessed that George Orwell’s prophecies steadily turned from fiction to fact, plays a dangerous game with numbers.
If we were to reduce the alcohol limit, [the government’s] report estimates that between 168 and 303 lives might be saved. Alternatively, the number of deaths might remain the same but the percentage caused by drink drivers might, instead, rise. In 2007 a report showed that Britain’s drink-driving incidents accounted for 16% of road deaths. By comparison, France has the proposed limit of just 50mg per 100ml, a similar-sized population to ours, but an alcohol-related road death rate of 27%.
While the Government’s intentions might be to bring the UK’s drinking laws in line with our European cousins, they don’t appear to be looking to change the penalties associated with the offence. Sweden, for example, is a country so obsessed with the draconian control of alcohol that it can only be purchased from Government managed outlets and has a drink driving limit of just 20mg/100ml of blood. Merely consuming Night Nurse to help with a cold could put you over the limit. However, unlike Britain’s mandatory minimum 1 year driving ban their penalty ranges from a disqualification of three months to three years. In the UK we also face imprisonment of 6 months to ten years depending on the severity of the offence; in Sweden it’s just one month to two years.
Portugal (50mg), carries no imprisonment for drink driving offences and disqualification of just 15 days to one year. Our immediate neighbours, France, get a minimum disqualification of just 1 month and a maximum of one year. Imprisonment, depending on circumstances, is just two months to two years.
So the proposal is to reduce the amount of alcohol you can have before driving, but not adjust the penalties to reflect the offence.
People who, up to now, have been decent, law-abiding citizens and safe road users would immediately become criminals. Because of one glass of wine they may lose their license, their job and their home in one fell swoop. The effect on their families and the economy could be devastating and the pub trade could simply crumble because its already-dwindling base of customers would be too scared to step outside their homes for a quiet drink with friends.
And what role does the publican hold in this? When the Licensing Act 2003 came in to force five years ago, more onus was put on to the Publican to ensure he served alcohol in a safe and responsible manner. It is already illegal for us to sell alcohol to an individual who we suspect is going to drink and drive, but how much more liability will be put on us in the event of lowering the drink/drive limit? And what about the responsibilities of the off-trade?
If the motor car were to be invented today it would surely be banned immediately. If they rewrote the rules right now, only sensible people with brown hair and Teflon trousers, aged between 38 and 52, would be allowed to have a license, and only then if the Locomotive Act of 1865 was reinstated.
But that is, of course, the problem with Britain today. We have become so safety obsessed that if alcohol or tobacco were invented right now, like the car they would be banned immediately. With the spread of sexually transmitted infections amongst promiscuous youths it is amazing that we are allowed to copulate in anything other than a Government-controlled environment.
Yesterday, as I waited at the bus stop for my children to return home from school, I couldn’t help but notice that at least half the traffic roaring through our village broke the speed limit, 22% of drivers were using mobile phones and three cars still had ridiculous flags hanging off their door frames.
Two drivers took their eyes off the road momentarily to wave a hello to me and one girl was so stupid she was actually eating an apple.
Statistically, then, driving is ruddy dangerous and we shouldn’t be allowed to do it. At all.
And so it is with the alcohol limit for driving. A reduction from 80mg to 50mg will mean that the average person drinking a mid-range pint of beer will immediately be over the limit to drive, and this makes having a limit complete nonsense.
Logically, then, if you’re going to lower the limit it should be to zero but to have such intolerance would be another step backwards for our nation – not to mention our industry – and would mean that anybody who had a glass of wine with their dinner wouldn’t be allowed to drive for a week.
I don’t seek to trivialise the offence and I feel grievously sorry for people who have had to endure such a calamity in their lives. Obviously, if one of my children were to be killed by a drink driver I would want them hanged from my pub’s sign by their genitals, but I am sensible enough to recognise that reducing the limit from 80mg to 50mg is unlikely to prevent such an accident from happening.
All that will have changed is the statistic: instead of being a tragic accident caused by a driver who lost control of their vehicle, it will become a tragic accident that was caused by a drunk driver.
Lowering the amount of alcohol allowed in the blood before driving, then, won’t necessarily save lives. Sadly, it’ll just change the numbers. And, without a sensible review of the penalties also imposed on offenders, potentially ruin more lives in the process.
The zero tolerance idea has already gained quite a bit of traction here, with some local and state jurisdictions adopting it unofficially, despite the fact that the law contradicts that. They’ve just decided what the law is on their own, with no thought to the implications of the police making the law instead of just enforcing it.
As I’ve long argued, if MADD and the other neo-prohibitionists were really serious about reducing alcohol-related driving accidents, they’d at least also be lobbying for better and more available public transit. Since it's a foregone conclusion that you can't stop people from drinking, making available alternative modes of transportation just seems like an incredibly obvious strategy, and one which every anti-alcohol group has utterly ignored. To me, that's always said something about their true intentions.
One commenter at the Publican, Fredrik Eich, had a nicely sarcastic point of view which I think gets to the heart of it:
[I]f we really wanted to reduce deaths on public roads we could start denormalising and changing perceptions of drivers now. Ban vehicle manufactures from advertising cars and bikes but give money to public transport companies to advertise; thus insuring media bias in favour of our campaign. We can start calling them “merchants of death”. We could make sure cars and bikes have tombstone warnings on them such as “Driving kills” or “Driving harms you and others around you”; which for a refreshing change, is provable beyond reasonable doubt. We could also put images of crash victims on cars and bikes so that people on buses have a clear understanding of what our message is and how selfish drivers are. Eventually, cars and bikes could be banned on public roads and this would be really easy to enforce and would cut out any form of drink driving as well — two birds with one stone. Why are we concerned about a driver having a glass of wine with their Sunday lunch when really we should be making all the drivers eating their Sunday lunch use public transport? If it really is just about saving lives why not!
Funny, but true when you get right down to it. With MADD still working toward lowering the acceptable BAC to 0.05%, we’re moving closer to zero tolerance, a defacto prohibition. That has actually been the prohibitionist strategy literally since 1933, when the 18th Amendment was repealed. Since that time, they’ve been doing whatever they could to make it more difficult for adults to obtain legal alcohol through advertising restrictions, zoning restrictions, minimum age laws, and a host of other end around measures. Today, the big push also involves taxes, as we see all over the country, taking advantage of our economic recession to push their unrelated agenda.
Ah, well, sorry for all this rambling, but a lot of interesting ideas came out of Daniels op-ed.
When I started driving many years ago, the BAC DUI level, to the best of my recollection, was .15 (in a time that we didn’t even need to wear seat belts!). Now it is .08 and probably heading lower.
I believe in personal freedom and in personal responsibility; if you injure someone (you could be on the cell phone, texting, having had too much to drink, your dog in your lap while driving, inattentive, paying more attention to kids in the back seat than to the road, etc.) due to negligence of any type you should be responsible. Accidents aren’t just caused by people who have a drink and drive; in fact, the last three accidents close friends have been in were caused by being hit from behind by drivers on cell phones! A little realistic perspective in our society would be appreciated.
Spot on Jay; this draconian organization needs to be called out and checked. Thank you.
What a whiney little bitch. The reductio ad absurdum argument is facile and does a disservice to real instances of abuse of power. If you use up your indignation credits crying about being denied a beer before you go driving, you don’t get any more when your government cripples your more important freedoms.
Yes, tobacco would undoubtedly have gone the way of methadrone if it were introduced today, but it’s fairly easy to see why and this has nothing to do with the argument.
Drink drivers are not some kind of repressed minority and it’s sickening to see them act like they are.
Wow, don’t hold back, let me know how you really feel. So before I wonder aloud what happened to civility, I’m curious if you think everyone who drives after drinking is exactly the same and may be painted with one broad brush? Because the problem we see in the U.S. is that there are hardcore drunk drivers who drink way too much and then get behind the wheel and there are others who just have a drink or two after work or with dinner; two distinct classes.
While I hadn’t considered it before, the second group are in effect an oppressed minority. So thanks for the idea. It’s a slippery slope to assume one right or freedom is less important than another. Taking away the “less important” ones always makes it easier to take the rest, as history teaches us.
Lowering the standard by which you are judged to be drunk or too drunk to drive does nothing to stop the hardcore drunk and merely increases the statistics (and ruins the lives of people actively trying to be responsible) for the casual drinker. That’s had a chilling effect here where public transit is either non-existent or woefully inefficient and people have no real alternatives to driving in many, if not most, cases.
People who’ve had one drink are treated the same as the person as who’s had 10 by our court system, that’s one result of lowering the BAC. If that makes me whiny, I’m okay with that.
Am I obliged to be civil to Mr Daniels even though he gets paid for writing that specious claptrap?
I agree that it is not appropriate to paint all drink drivers with one broad brush, however the distinction between those who drink little and those who drink lots is of no relevance. The only important distinction is those who kill and injure people and those who do not. If one thinks it is a good idea to legislate against people becoming the kill-and-injure sort then I think it’s a bad idea to send them on their way after “a drink or two after work”. And if the government’s message for decades has been “Don’t Drink and Drive” — as it has been where Mr Daniels lives — then it’s not a good idea to append “Unless You’ve Only Had, Like, One Or Two, Then You’re Totally OK *Wink Wink*” on the end.
I think you have badly misinterpreted the GAC’s 1999 report with your “In other words, lowering the limit just led to more arrests and criminalized people”. That is not what the report says. The report does say:
“There are, however, strong indications that .08 BAC
laws in combination with other drunk driving laws (particularly license revocation laws), sustained public education and information efforts, and vigorous and consistent enforcement can save lives.” [my emphasis]
No-one is actually going to accurately measure their BAC before getting behind the wheel. Legal limits are all about sending the message that either “a drink or two is fine”, or “never drink and drive”. Choosing the latter, IMO, is not the thin end of some tyrannical wedge.
Ha, well one can hope.
“The only important distinction is those who kill and injure people and those who do not. If one thinks it is a good idea to legislate against people becoming the kill-and-injure sort then I think it’s a bad idea to send them on their way after ‘a drink or two after work.’” But there are already laws against killing-and-injuring, of course, all lowering the level does is make more people unable to trust their own judgment. And over here, that has not had the intended consequence of lowering alcohol-related deaths because it’s not the people in between 0.08% and 0.1% who are the problem drunks or drivers. And despite the GAC report, my experience and watching what’s happened here gives me no confidence in the report, which I presume was not unbiased in any event.
And over here, except for a few limited urban areas, we have almost NO public transit, unlike most places I’ve been to in Europe. You at least have alternatives, we don’t. Every new law subjects lawful persons who do have a drink to greater scrutiny, potential ruin but no more safer community in reality. Moving toward a “never drink and drive” world does, I think, move us closer to tyranny, because it creates a defacto prohibition. We can’t legislate risk out of our lives, nor should we want to. It’s unrealistic. All it ends up doing is punishing the good, responsible people but not altering the behavior of the bad.
Actually, I know breweries here who issue all their employees breathalyzers who are working beer festivals and other events. I travel with one to some events I attend, because it’s such a thorny issue. That’s the culture we’ve created here, where there’s such fear that many people do in fact check their BAC before driving.
Fantastic article, Jay.
I’d be a big fan of a progressive system like they have in South Korea. Especially given the current all or nothing consequences to a DUI, I strongly favor the principle of more booze = more to lose.
That being said, my proposed law change is:
0.00 -> 0.049 = No Offense
0.05 -> 0.079 = Traffic Violation (Similar to speeding ticket) (2 Points)
0.08 -> 0.099 = Traffic Violation (Similar to reckless driving),
Mandatory Drunk Driving Course, and Community Service (4 Points)
0.10 -> 0.15 = Full blown DUI as we see it now in the US (8 Points)
0.15 ++ = DUI consequences in line with what see for 2nd time Repeat offenders in US (12 Points)
Each year you lose a ‘Point’. Accumulated Point totals tack on the following consequences to the repeat offenders:
5+ Points = 1 year loss of driving license
10+ Points = 3 year loss of driving license
15+ Points = 5 year loss of driving license
20 Points+ = Permanent loss of driving license
Terrific article! I love numbers and stuff. I wonder what it would have been like to be 1n 18-going-on-19 year old in 1984 when the drinking age in the US was raised 3 years…unpleasant at best. Doing something legal today, with the same act becoming illegal tomorrow?
This whole article reminded me of the “If you’re not allowed to drink and drive, why are bars allowed to having parking lots?” saying, although I have no idea where I originally heard that from.
When Colorado takes a no tolerance stance and fully prosecutes its own politicians and other government officials of this State who REALLY should know better than to drink and drive, I see no reason to give them more power than they already have in drinking and driving policies. These corrupt drinking and driving lawbreakers get leniency at every turn, as we citizens sit by like the sheep that we are, doing and saying nothing about it, even though these incidents have been well documented and video taped in some cases. Here are four recent examples…On March 22, 2010, Colorado State Patrol trooper David Dolan, who was also on the DUI task force, was drunk driving while on duty in his patrol car, in full uniform and armed. Authorities said their dispatch center received several calls from drivers concerned about a marked Colorado State Patrol vehicle driving erratically on Interstate 25 near Castle Rock shortly before 7 a.m. He is awaiting trial after having it pushed to a later date sometime in September of 2010. (Info on Mr. Dolan arrest, http://cbs4denver.com/crime/state.trooper.dolan.2.1580332.html ) Also in 2010, Jim Wilson, 22nd Judicial District Attorney who was arrested for having his BAC close to double the legal limit, careless driving, driving with an open container and having possesion of a 9mm handgun when stopped. Mr. Wilson was convicted on the much lesser charge of DWAI and all other charges, including weapon charges, were dropped. ( http://www.cortezjournal.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=10181 ) Former Mayor of Colorado Springs and present executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado, Mary Lou Makepeace in December of 2008 was pulled over by Pikes Peak Community College Police for weaving in and out of the center line with her adult daughter and a four year old child as passengers in her vehicle at 9:15pm. She had watery, bloodshot eyes, smelled of alcohol, refused the roadside sobriety tests and blew a . 077 in the officers BAC device. Barely under the .08 of a D.U.I. but still way over the .05 for a DWAI. The officer, knowing who Mrs. Makepeace was, called for Colorado Springs Police for back-up. When the Colorado Springs officer appeared on scene and also recognized Mrs. Makepeace, he called for a Sergeant On-Duty to the scene to supervise the investigation. The Officers ended up letting Mrs. Makepeace call a relative to come pick up and drive her, her daughter and the four year old child home when the officers decided she was too impaired to drive herself. No Arrest was made, or ticket given out… When asked about this incident, A University of Colorado Law professor who helped write the State of Colorado Judge’s DUI Benchbook, he could not explain the officer’s actions at the scene of the stop. Nice to be you, Ms. Lucky Lou… (Information on Mrs. Makepeace’s traffic stop can be found here…http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q … n31401490/ ) Also in 2008, Fourth Judicial District Attorney John Newsome of Colorado Springs apologized publically after being caught by Colorado Springs KOAA television station’s hidden camera while drinking at a bar and later driving a county-owned vehicle back to his office. Newsome said he is no longer disputing the KOAA report and vowed to do better. “I realize I need to be setting the standard for setting an example, and that’s what I’ll strive to do. I will strive to make sure a thing like this never happens again.” The television station aired its report on a Tuesday night after filming Newsome on a “recent afternoon” as he drank three 20-ounce beers and a 10-ounce beer during “Work Hours” over the course of less than two hours at Oscar’s, a downtown Colorado Springs bar. Newsome was then shown heading back to his office. An hour later, he drove his El Paso County owned SUV to another bar, according to KOAA. There, Newsome was reportedly seen drinking four more pints with Assistant District Attorney Amy Mullaney and then driving away. Mullaney was also drinking with Newsome earlier that day at Oscar’s. “Over a period of weeks, “News First” employees watched him engage in similar behavior three other times,” the station reported. During that five-hour span being video taped, Newsome had roughly 130-ounces of beer. That’s nearly as much as a 12-pack. He then drove home in an El Paso County-owned vehicle. He then called KOAA by cell phone and when KOAA told him they had him on videotape drinking during work hours and later driving, he accused us of “stalking” him, and three times during the call said, “I’ll sue you.” No charges or discipline measures were ever brought to D.A. Newsome for his drinking and driving crimes, not to mention while on duty and figuring out how to prosecute you and me to the fullest extent of the law. I wonder how many convicted by Mr. Newsome of DUI or DWAI asked, or even begged for the same leniency and forgiveness from the State and the court that he himself recieved by a weak political State government and instead, Mr. Newsome most probably threw the book at them. ( Information on D.A. John Newsome’s drinking and driving state vehicles while at work incidents can be found at ( http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/754823/john_newsome_colorados_4th_judicial.html) Colorado is all about saving lives… Then why does our Colorado Government think it’s also OK to use a cell-phone and drive? It is driving impaired as well while using a cell phone and driving, physically and mentally. One hand on the phone and more importantly than physically holding the phone… mentally engrossed with the subject of conversation with another party. The attention span of paying attention to the road significantly lessens as a conversation lengthens and intensifies. The time limits of these cell-phone calls can go on for 10 minutes or more. Driving 30 m.p.h. covers five miles of inattentive driving in 10 minutes. Most will say, “Oh that’s not me… I keep my calls short and there’s no difference between a cell phone conversation and tuning in a station on my car radio.”… but what is the difference when a driver who’s had a few beers says,” Oh not me… I can drive safe for a few blocks and a few beers doesn’t impair me enough not to drive…”. There is NO difference. The insurance industry, AAA and even the “Mythbusters” TV show on the Discovery Channel did actual driving tests on their show in a controlled environment that concluded that spoken cell phone use while driving compares equally to DUI or drug impairment. There is a mental pre-occupation with cell phone use, especially thinking out solutions to a problem or situations while on the phone and driving that mentally blacks out the driver in short segments from what they’re doing behind the wheel. Then why doesn’t the State of Colorado be more vigorous in enforcing cell phone use the same as drinking and driving? Because then it affects their lives. The same Government officials (…and M.A.D.D. too ) that enforce and pass laws against DWAI and DUI offenses talk on their cell phones and drive every single day and don’t care at all about endangering your life or mine. So Coloradoans, if you practice cell phone use while driving, don’t ever bother to comment on drinking and driving issues because you’re no better. So, you’re still not convinced and think cell phone use while driving is no big deal? Tell the Mother of the nine year old Erica Forney, who’s life was tragically taken by a woman driving and on her cell-phone, November 25th of 2008 in the Fort Collins area. Nine year old Erica was hit head on, while the driver of the vehicle was busy on her cell-phone and veered into Erica riding her bicycle. The woman driving stated in court she doesn’t even recall hitting Erica. That is how impaired one gets while on a cell-phone! The woman was charged with only careless driving while resulting in death and received a punishment of Community service, probation, driving classes, letters of apology, only a $300.00 fine, less than the punishment for a DUI and no jail time…THAT’S RIGHT…NO JAIL TIME! ( Information on this case can be found here http://www.denverpost.com/ci_12312532 ) In Colorado it’s OK to run down children who did nothing wrong except be at the wrong place, at the wrong time and have the culprit served not one day in jail… Why?… “I was on my cell-phone silly…” I guess it’s a cuter way of homicide than someone who’s had a few cold ones…Do you get the picture yet…? The Woman driving made a conscious effort to call, be in the middle of a call, or receive a call and not pay attention to the road in front of her. She was not forced in any way to be on the phone, just like a person is not forced to drink an alcoholic beverage. She chose to be on the phone. That is a pre-meditated act of Driving While Mentally Impaired! So are we saying that type of impairment is OK since it is popular in the public’s opinion, just about everyone owns a cell phone, does it and there is no specific law in the books for it yet? Is life greater in value when it’s taken by an intoxicated driver or is sorrow over a death in a driving accident exclusive only to M.A.D.D.? It seems to me that lives are pretty expendable in the State of Colorado when an extremely high percentage of its citizens do the same thing as the woman that killed young Erica… using cell-phones while driving. Conversely, a first time offender of a DUI or DWAI crime who may have been driving 5-10 MPH over the speed limit or had a tail light out on their vehicle to get stopped, then found to have been drinking at, slightly over, or slightly under the BAC legal limit, will receive a harsher sentence as the woman who actually killed a child, primarily on the basis of what COULD have happened while drinking and driving, even though no major crime was committed when pulled over by police, aside for the previous consumption of alcoholic beverages? It is never smart to drink and drive, but if you are driving safely at the time of the stop and all that can be really charged is the Alcohol consumption, then people are being convicted on the present law that is based on “Might haves” or “What ifs”. They made a movie in 2002 with Tom Cruise about this same subject called “Minority Report” and it’s advertisement catch phrase was “What would you do if you were accused of a murder you had not committed yet? In the future, criminals are caught before the crimes they commit” . How prophetic! Each DWAI or DUI case needs to be judged and punished on an individual case basis, not a, “Once a drunk driver, always a drunk driver” umbrella and not over-punishing one person to make a public community service statement and exacting revenge for certain politically backed groups to pay the price for the past of others who actually took a life while intoxicated or habitual offenders who have gotten off easy. Ruining a life of a first time offender who has never been in trouble in their life and may have been on the bubble, a little over, or under the .08 BAC and made a poor choice to drink and drive but nothing else, will now pay for this crime on a personal, financial, criminal, emotional and social bases for the rest of his life as Colorado does not allow a DUI or DWAI to ever be expunged or sealed…EVER. They are to be treated as some sort of habitual criminal and is now the modern Scarlet Letter of out times as the charge is permanently stamped in their criminal and DMV record for employers and all to see in one’s lifetime. Most DWAI or DUI offenders are ashamed with the charge brought against them and are harder on themselves than the court and criminal system could ever be, but the State laws don’t see it that way. They think the laws for first time offenders need to be even tougher. Most know, and feel, that they made one poor choice and learned from their mistake. The media always publishes all kinds of statistics on re-offenders of DUI’s or DWAI’s to justify making drinking and driving laws more potent in their punishment, but you never read about the reality of the extremely high percentage of drivers that learned from their first-time mistake and never got even as much as a parking ticket ever again. So Colorado citizens, do you really want more Government involved in our lives? Then let’s get down to brass tacks and not be hypocrites. If the State (and this means you too M.A.D.D) really want to do something significant to save innocent lives, pass laws against ANY form of cell phone use while driving, at any age. Initiate a law for alcoholic beverage maximums per customer in restaurants and bars… or better yet, eliminate drinking at public establishments all together. Can’t have your Sauvignon Blanc with your veal?… Tough luck. Want a beer to watch the game with your buddies at the bar? Too bad, so sad, drink coffee or a Coke… Want an alcoholic drink? Have it in the privacy of your own home. Sound a little excessive? Well, it shouldn’t if Colorado’s heartfelt and sincere goal is to save an innocent life. Colorado Government didn’t blink an eye in banning smoking in Colorado restaurants and bars because,” Second hand smoke endangered the health of innocent lives.” If restaurant and bar owners claim their business will suffer by the non-sales of alcoholic beverages, Colorado Government should use the same argument that the Restaurateurs all gobbled up for the smoking ban. It was OK for smoking to be banned, so what’s the difference between that and endangering a life from behind the wheel of a vehicle? …Nothing but the time it takes…
Speaking of Colorado, I’ve got another gem for you. It amazes and boggles the mind that Aurora, Co. Police Chief Dan Oates thinks police officers at the Aurora P.D. conduct themselves in a exemplory manner, as the Aurora Police Dept. chose to keep an Officer Marc Sears on the force after his first DUI conviction in 2009, Yes I said CONVICTION, that resulted in a crash on his personal motorcycle which he then had to be hospitalized. Then what does Chief Dan Oates do? Naturally he puts Officer Sears to work at the Aurora Police Academy teaching new recruits how to be quality officers like himself. Is Chief Oates for real?? Now Officer Marc Sears earned himself a 2nd DUI charge in 2010 in which he crashed his personal SUV into a light pole and rolling it over onto it’s side. Sears states he was trying to avoid a deer. Police Chief Oates then stated,”Obviously,we are taking it very seriously.” Really…??? If you took this so seriously you would have fired Officer Sears from the Aurora Police dept. after his first DUI. This may be how thing are done in Detroit were you came from, but it doesn’t fly well with folks in Colorado. The Aurora Police dept. also had another police officer resign in 2008 after recieving 2 DUI’s. Aurora P.D. are absolute hypocrites and scum for ruining hard working citizens lives by issuing DUI’s and then breaking the same laws themselves while keeping the offending officers employed. An absolute disgrace!!