His license had been suspended for something like 16 years (related to DUIs). He has been charged w/ 2nd degree murder in addition to several other offenses like evading police. I doubt he’ll ever be a free man again (quite justified IMHO).

Taking away his license didn’t work. If an interlock could be defeated, I’m sure he’d find a way. So, what do we do with these types of offenders? Unfortunately, I do tend to agree that incarceration is likely the only reasonable solution.

The hard part in our society is that cars are such an essential part of the transportation infrastructure that people will work hard to defeat any technical or soft legal measure you put in their way.

I think Drunk drivers who cause death to others should lose their licenses permanently.

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I think drunk drivers should have their licenses removed permanently.

Those causing death should be charged with man-slaughter.

Yeah, they didn’t deliberately kill someone (that’s for murder). They did deliberately enter a killing mode.

Either of those cases would be very rare, rather like the “I wont wear a seatbelt because I could crash through a bridge’s guardrails and drown.” Most—by a large margin—people in car accidents don’t go sliding into the water.

Similarly, there’s likely more drunk drivers than carjackings and rush-to-the-hospital moments when you cannot get someone to blow-start your car will be rare (and you’re probably better off calling the EMTs in, anyway).

That said, this is an iffy solution. Chronic drunks—who this is supposed to stop—will find a way around it. About the only option you have, other than incarceration, is to take the car away.

You’d witness a comical scene where the carjacker is forced to down tools and fellate the device before he can make good his escape…this assumes of course the felon is a sober carjacker.

It gives a whole new slant on things the next time you are walking down the street and the chap looks up from the parked car and mumbles “Blow me?”

Honestly, what’s the difference between .08 and .10? Driving safety wise? I”m sure the difference is good at snagging more drivers.

I too sometimes have a problem with these type of laws with super strict punishments. Can we really say the result of a .09 BAC blow makes one a far worse driver than granny who can’t drive or someone who is so tired they fall asleep behind the wheel? Granny and Van Winkle get slapped with an at-fault accident and a traffic citation. .09 with no accident gets you hell. Something isn’t right about that.

Expect a flood of this in the future…

I actually am offended about the way highway funding is used as blackmail. No doubt MADD would get really mad about the idea of rolling back the drinking age. Seems to me that if people were interested in saving lives, they would address the primary cause of preventable disease by instituting a 21 year old tobacco purchase age. The vast majority of smokers start before that age. And you could leave adult age smokers alone instead of harassing them all the time.

However, currently, the penalties for drunk driving go far beyond the fine. Someone convicted is likely to lose their license, making it much harder to get to work, if they don’t get fired for the offense, will pay a butload more for insurance, and will find it much harder to get a new job with a DUI on their record. Add to this that the acceptable BAC has dropped from .15 to .10 to .08 and a lot more people are having their lives torn apart from a traffic stop.

I’m against mandatory jail time sentencing minimums and penalties for virtually all crimes. The goal of our criminal justice system should be to discourage criminal activity, but also to rehabilitate. Drivers convicted of a DUI where no one was hurt should be put into a program to teach them how to get over any addictions they may have, and to teach them how to become better drivers.

Also, what if the drunk driver was not the one who caused the accident? If somoene is driving drunk and gets t-boned by a sober driver running a red light, who is at fault?

Its an easy fix. Anymore than a couple of drinks,don’t drive.

These things are difficult. Don’t ask me how I know but in the end with no harm done I have been a HUGE taxpayer, insurance patron, and private interlock enterprise coustmer.

Anyone willing to start the “would have, could have, might have been, possibly could have occured, randomly firing a gun” stuff won’t work.

It is wild how much you can give while taking nothing from socity.

More and more people will be smacked HARD for a DUI and there will be a lash back. These are the people who have been overly punished. It is too easy to drink and drive. On the other hand it is VERY hard to rob a bank. Remember you can go to jail for both these crimes.

Interlock manufacturers are well aware of how their units can be bypassed. Some have even included cameras in their newest models with face recognition software to verify the correct person is blowing into the device. While these units can be bypassed (by someone who knows his way around automotive wiring) you are also required to take your vehicle in periodically for these to be checked and data on the unit to be downloaded. On top of that, you do not own the device but lease it. So this also cost you money each month.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/arizona-makes-it-easier-to-charge-stationary-drivers-with-dui/

This article seem to imply that if you’re drunk and even near a car – you can be considered driving drunk.

In my dictionary, “driving a car” means controlling the direction and speed of the car.

If you haven’t blown into the interlock – can you be considered “driving”? I would think not. The car is inoperable.

This device probably has plenty of loopholes or workarounds.

The crusade to crucify anyone driving with a whiff of alcohol or medication in their system is starting to look like a witch hunt. Depending on the details of how it is implemented, these broad IID laws could just be more pitchforks in the hands of angry villagers.

If they’re only for repeat offenders or the truly trashed, I’m all for them.

We’ll see.

While I do not promote being irresponsible, destructive, or murderous, MADD is full of all sorts of crazy.

Of course, you can prevent that by installing GPS-wireless electric snoops that cry for Big Mother every time the breathalyser doesn’t register at the Central Office. Obviously that involves policey-statey-1984-ey type questions, that I am sure MADD would be quite quick to discount. Quite disturbing.

Seriously, it would probably be very easy to get some passer-by to blow on the interlock device.