"Drivers still don't get the message"
 

Drivers still don't get the message

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Could someone please explain to me why this is the case?

We have swift and immediate penalties, extra enforcement, and yet we're supposedly well on the way to breaking records for numbers of fatalities.

Could it simply be that there will always be a minimum number of collisions given the number of cars that share a given area?

Could we simply already be at the point of diminishing returns where no matter how stiff the penalties are we're just not going to see massive reductions in collisions?

MADD is experiencing this same phenomenon. There's always going to be holdouts, and it takes spending a lot to convince the last few holdouts to conform. I doubt the new laws are at that point, yet they have definitely been working. There's been vast improvements in everything... except cell phones.

I still see tons of people in BC on cell phones, vs very few when I was in Ontario. Why? the fine: $500 vs $167 in BC. BC does take demerit points though, yet only if caught actually pushing buttons, Ontario has no demerit points.

Really?

The context for the "number of fatalities" is for bike fatalities - not for cars, or for impaired driving in general.

Because people as a group are self-absorbed assholes who think the rules apply to everyone but them.

When you're questioning tough new laws and penalties, start by questioning why they're even necessary in the first place.

In MY perfect world, society should be able to just say, "Drinking and driving is bad and not acceptable to us, so don't do it.", and people wouldn't do it, and there would be no need for road checks or breathalyzers or suspensions or impoundments.

Until people get it through their thick skulls that if they want to exist within society, they need to follow society's rules instead of just doing whatever they fucking please, we'll need to smack them down harder and harder until they either get the point, or are simply kept out of everyone else's way.

They were talking about this on NW yesterday afternoon, in fact... one guy called in from the Port Mann, stuck in the eastbound crawl (using his bluetooth, of course) and noted that in the past few minutes, he'd counted no fewer than SEVEN cars going the other way, where the drivers had phones plastered to their heads.

It's fucking ridiculous.

The cops complain that there are still so many people breaking the law.. 470 30-day probations because of people drinking and driving. Maybe if the law wasn't so fucking strict people could still enjoy that 1 beer at dinner and drive home. Yet now that they can't the food business suffers, people suffer, and the cops suffer because the retards who still get piss durnk and drive are STILL OUT THERE.

/rant.

(For the record, I don't drink so don't call me bias. lol)

If you knew anything about the law, you'd know that the the BAC% of 0.05 is going to be much more than just one beer with dinner. You're one of those uneducated ones that don't even bother researching the law, but rather just listen to other idiots rant about it then just nod your head and agree.

You can still have one beer and drive home. You just need to wait an hour (provided you have your full license).

I just had to blow at the border this weekend coming home from a Seahawks game. I blew a 0.024 after having several beers (I had been counting, one an hour). The border agent tried to give me hell saying I would have blown over 1.5 hours ago when I left Seattle. That is unlikely as most people metabolize alcohol at a rate of 0.01-0.02/hour and the warn range is actually 0.06 as they account for the 0.01 tolerance of the machine).

People are just paranoid cause they are not/mis informed. Even my friend with me was shitting bricks when the officer asked me to blow, he couldn't believe how calm I was, yet that's cause I'm informed and knew there was noway I'd blow a warn.

Wait, Canada Customs gave you a breath test?

I guess the tax man wants his duties on the liquor in your belly.

I had to do a breathalizer test just once in my life and it was a few months ago during the playoffs. I was watching the game at home with my buddy, and had 2 beers while watching the game. I'm one of those Chinese guys who look drunk with just half a beer in me because my face turns a little red.

Anyways, went downtown after the game (so I guess it was about 2.5hrs after my first beer?) and I blew 0.018. I'm also a small guy (about 140lbs) so I'm not the big guy who can drink 10 beers without getting drunk.

I did some calculations on some of the BAC calculators - and even if you were a 90lb kid, if you drank ONE beer over an hour, you should still be just under 0.05 BAC.

Yep, a CBS (Canada Border Services) agent gave me a breath test. He stepped out of the booth with the device all ready to go, so I assume they do this often. The way he was questioning me my buddy figured he was giddy to catch us, and he seemed angry after I only blew a 0.024.

The CBS agent only explained afterwards the car smelled like beer, thus the questioning and breath test. My buddy left his sweater under his seat at the game and the people behind spilled beer all over it. Lesson learned, rinse that shit out before putting it back in the car (I drive a hatchback, so the smell wasn't confined to just the trunk).

That's been my joke all week!

The only problem is some of the draft "beers" are more than a standard sized bottle/can of beer, yet even then most of us would be under.

Yes.

You guys who drink beer are also way better off for the BAC stuff then us girls. Our fruity drinks tend to be loaded with hard alcohol and not so easy to break down (my crantini the other night had the 3 shots of hard alcohol in it... which is 3 drinks, as each shot counts as a separate "drink"). And we're typically smaller then you guys to begin with.

For us it's more like 1 drink every 2 - 3 hours.

That said. Amongst my girlfriends we just rotate DD. As we have been since this whole thing changed. The ones who drink pay for the tab of who ever drives and we take turns being the one who drives.

I had about 2 within an hour at a restaurant... fast forward to blowing into a breathalyzer for fun out of curiosity (was not driving, was still at the restaurant), and blew well under .05 It made me realize how badly impaired you would be at .08.

all of you say drunk driving is so bad yet you dont say anything about how bad it is to drink in the first place. Alcohol prohibition is one of the stupidest and smartest things in the history of mankind and if it was abolished we wouldn't have this problem, but its so deeply rooted into society that if it was jobs and lives would be lost. In the end all we can do for now is put the band-aid on the leaking dam.

The 0.05 limit has been in place in BC since 1977, before most of the people on this forum were born...


Canada Customs will enforce federal laws, including impaired driving under the CCC