If you've been following this site, you've seen an ongoing discussion of drunk driving, which is one of those crimes I think should be punishable by…well, by more than the customary punishments these days. An acquaintance of mine, Bob Cosgrove, weighed in here on the matter and then an anonymous (to you, not to me) person was quoted here. Now, it's Bob's turn again…
It's really all about the trade off between encouraging people not to drink and drive and fairly punishing those who do. (Actually, it's really about keeping people alive.) It would be interesting to see some research on that issue — what's the ideal "tipping point" beyond which jacking up the penalties yields little perceptible gains. With luck, your posts on these issues will get people thinking. Your concern probably has a bigger impact on people, coming from someone they tune in to for your interesting comments on entertainment and related issues, than from someone with a perceived ax to grind.
Anyway, I thought to just shut up and not bother you again, but at least for your own information, I felt I had to make one comment on the very interesting post from the fellow who had the dui conviction. As you would expect from my original comment, I agree with a lot of what he had to say, especially about sentencing. But two comments, then I promise to shut up on the subject.
Given a normal rate for metabolizing alcohol (and some of us are faster, some slower), to have been one above the "legal limit" (and I assume from the rest of his post, he's talking .08), he would have had to have consumed those three beers within one hour, and he would have to have weighed about 110 pounds. For a guy 200 lbs., consuming 3 beers in the same amount of time, the result would be under .05, low enough to get the charges dismissed in most states. Maybe he's a lightweight, maybe he has a slow metabolism, or maybe he lost count of how many beers he actually drank. There are various charts people can play with on the internet to figure out averages by weight and time — they just have to google something like "blood alcohol chart" and take their pick.
Second, if there is a phrase I could consign to hell, it would be "legal limit." The press uses it all the time, though I've never seen the term in a statute. The implication is that it's like fishing — catch ten fish and you're fine, catch eleven and you're fined. What the "legal limit," so-called, usually is, is the point where the blood alcohol level alone is high enough for the jury to draw an inference of guilt, absent any other evidence of impairment. But you can be impaired (as I tried to suggest in my comment you were kind enough to quote with my story about blowing a .06) at levels far below the "legal limit." (And frankly, a practiced alcoholic may drive better substantially over the "legal limit" than a lapsed teetotaler with a few drinks under his belt). That may be why the "legal limit" for airline pilots is zero.
Well, I assume the "legal limit" for pilots is zero because they can get an awful lot of people killed or hurt. I think there should be more recognition that a drunk behind the wheel of a Plymouth can do that, too. A message I received but didn't post here included the observation that drunk drivers who don't get into accidents frequently get off with little or no punishment out of a sense that they didn't endanger anyone but themselves. But of course, that's a fallacy; they endangered lots of people. They just didn't hit any of them.
Not that you're suggesting this but the idea of people deciding if they're sober enough to drive via math strikes me as appalling. It's easy to imagine someone thinking, "Well, I weigh 241 pounds and I only had 3.5 Coronas in forty-three minutes so it must be safe to drive." It may be that what I'm really seeking is not so much more severe penalties for drunk driving but less inclination to give the marginal case the benefit of the doubt.
I also think that in all areas, I'd like to see more societal rejection of the notion that you're not responsible for your actions while tipsy. Among the many reasons I don't drink is that I've seen a number of people — including, alas, a few close friends — do and say enormously rude and even harmful things…and then, later, offer "I was high" as if it's some sort of acceptable excuse. One of the drunk drivers responsible for a friend's death seemed genuinely convinced that being drunk was a form of Temporary Insanity so you were not legally or even morally culpable for what you did in that condition. (He further argued that someone else had forced libations upon him so he was not even responsible for being intoxicated.) I'm generally a very forgiving person but I cannot find any forgiveness in myself for the evil that men do when plastered. If you're a jerk when you're drunk, you're a jerk, period.
Since some may think this sounds prudish or puritan, I should add that I really have no problem with people drinking or doing drugs. I don't think people who are stoned should be stoned. I just don't want them around me. If the world ever became a dictatorship with me in charge — and call me pessimistic but I'm starting to get the sense this might not happen soon — I would liberalize the laws for private use of drug and drink, and tighten them for doing it in public. I'd also do something about Regis Philbin being on TV so much but that's another matter.
We may have beaten this topic into the ground so I'll just thank everyone — Bob Cosgrove, especially — for participating. And now, I think I'll link to a video clip of Allan Sherman…