As far as I know, it is not illegal to have illegal substances in your body. Otherwise, everyone would be an offender at all times because DMT is contained in the bodies of most mammals, including humans, in small amounts.

Driving sleep impaired or, worse yet, asleep is actually punishable by Swedish law. You're right though that there's no way to accurately determine how sleep deprived they are and this clause is mostly only used after accidents have happened. But it exists.



That way would work for me.



Might be so if you look just at the seat-belt issue, yes. There were some other methods/issues mentioned in the preceding quote train though, mainly the yes or no to government's responsibility to protect lives in traffic.

I doubt you're correct about the costs though. Advertisement, if you choose to do it, is after all rather cheap. And there are always strange funds out to spend such money. Besides, it isn't really necessary to advertise that murder is forbidden, is it? In Swedish law there's a clause saying you're supposed to stay up-to-date with the law and I suppose you have something similar. And if the news channels do anything right, they'll inform about such a change.

Enforcement = police patrolling the roads and streets should in my opinion take place anyway, so it doesn't affect my calculation at all.

Scorpio, no matter how much you say that it's your own choice and that you are willing to take the consequences of your own choices, the fact remains that

1) seatbelts and helmets lessen the injuries people suffer in collisions
2) anyone severly injured in a traffic accident is a burden on the society

Those two points lead to the conclusion that, while it may seem like you only chance harming yourself by not wearing a seatbelt, in an extreme case, someone will have to change your diapers for a few decades. I don't think even the USA has any affordable insurances that cover that, and people not wearing their belts and helmets will eventually lead to an increased burden on the society beyond their own suffering (even if most of them escape without injuries); it's simple statistics.

I'd be quite surprised if most insurance companies didn't have a rule hidden in among the contract text that dictates that not wearing your seatbelt limits or completely negates certain benefits in case of a injury. Especially the long-term treatments and simply the upkeep of a paralyzed person, for example, can be hellishly expensive. If you really take your chances, refuse to wear your seatbelts, and get in a bad shape, a civilized country (possibly not including the USA) will not leave you lying in a ditch bleeding, or sleeping in your own poop paralyzed because you didn't have a seatbelt and an insurance; I believe even there, some minimum level of care will be provided for you. That means a burden on the society and therefore the society has a moral right to demand wearing seatbelts.

The combined effects of drugs and the inherent unpredictability are good enough reasons to demand zero tolerance, I think. I'd approve zero tolerance on alcohol, too, I'd have no problems with that.

The biggest problem I see with this type of legislation is that it is rather vague, and with any new power granted to government, that power is guaranteed to be abused. For instance, the following quote: "If, in the opinion of the officer, the suspect fails..." You mean, there is no objective way of establishing whether or not the suspect fails--in principle it is left to the police's whim? (Also, lately government has been passing a lot of legislation, especially ones that include fines and extra taxes. Seems they're getting desperate for more funding.) Of course, it could be that the story isn't totally accurate. I wouldn't know until I actually looked at legislation. But it doesn't sound too bad. At least it's not the case that they're forcing you to give up blood or urine on the spot like what has happened here in the States. I somewhat agree with others here, for the most part, if you're driving safely and not under the influence, this will have little to no affect on you. At most, it would be annoying if police pulled you over (I'd certainly be annoyed, espeically if it happened more than once and for no apparent reasons).

I know plenty of people who drive drunk/high on a regular basis, and they all drive better "impaired" than the women I know when they are sober.

Obviously that doesn't speak for the majority, plenty of idiots out there driving when they know they can't, but I find it laughable little kids like Bezerko who probably never touched marijuana or alcohol in his life think nobody can handle themselves under the influence of these terrible things.

Well, they do impair. Drink driving laws are a good thing. Bezerko's 0.0 alcohol thing is overkill, being on my P's right now makes me know how crap being 0.0 is. But yes, your friends are impaired, and are dangerous, just because you feel like you can drive doesn't mean you can.

1) Where did I say 0.0 alcohol thing?

2) Horned, if you're going to use that argument against me, then I pity you. HE'S A KID, HE KNOWS NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get the fuck over it.

Maybe you can handle yourself after a full night on the piss (ha), however the vast majority of people cannot, and that is the reason why such laws exist. If we were to introduce such subjective bullshit into our system (officer, I'm fine after 20, I SWEAR!) then laws on such things may as well not exist. Do you think that such laws and blood alcohol levels would have been introduced for no particular reason?

"Oh, booze might do something, yeah, 0.08/0.05 sounds like a reasonable limit, let's chuck that into a law!" Laws exist for a reason you dimwit, perhaps you might consider that before you pull an age card and use personal experiences as an excuse to refute my opinion. But hey, in the end, one person is OBVIOUSLY representative of an entire population. Fuck, it seems all Australians are white racists (CRONULLA YEAAAAAAH!), all governments are dictatorships (I READ IT IN A BOOK!) and every Muslim is a Jihadist, just waiting to destroy your wonderful little American dream.

I have to agree with everyone who doesn't get how this is draconian. All they're doing is getting tougher on impaired and dangerous (and stupid) motorists.


When someone says "draconian," I picture severe invasions of personal freedom or being locked up for untold periods for no real reason. Not a law getting tougher.

It seems to me that some people are missing one of the main reasons that impaired driving is illegal... a little thing we call "reaction time". No matter how much dope you smoke on a regular basis or how much booze you consume every day, it will still slow your reaction time, however slightly.

More to the point, that reaction time could be the difference between slamming on your brakes and narrowly avoiding an accident and slamming on your brakes and clipping someones back end. As a police officer, I responded to numerous accidents. Many of these were alcohol related. Now I can hear the peanut gallery, "They weren't smoking up, they were drinking!" I did respond to one accident where the individual who caused the accident had sufficient levels of THC in his blood to affect his driving. He rolled his jeep approximately eight times, hitting roughly fifteen trees, going down a steep bank and landing roughly six feet from a stream. The passenger was ejected through the windshield, and the only reason EMS could find him was because his shoe was still in the vehicle. The driver had no alcohol in his system, only THC. He hit a patch of ice going too fast, lost control and flipped the Jeep. I believe that someone not under the influence could have made a better decision as to the correct speed and even had they not, the reaction time might have saved the crash from being as bad as it was.

If you want to post in the Symposium, you should probably keep the rhetoric and unwarranted sexism to yourself. I doubt those people truly drive "better" than the average woman. Driving 5 miles an hour while hugging the center line of the road does not indicate improved driving skills.

R_H has it right, please maintain some standards of decency. I know bad male drivers, a few very good female drivers, and I have no idea of Bezerko's marijuana habits, but that looks like intentional fight-picking to me. Let's keep this civilized.

Besides, if the only qualifier was to be better than the worst driver on the road network, I could well drink three sixpacks before hitting the road. The point is that whenever someone's capability to drive falls, the probability of an accident grows, no matter if the person in question is the best or the worst driver to begin with; explaining that "I'm so good to begin with that I can easily drink two sixpacks and smoke a few blunts, and still be better that the 87-year old Edgar down the road" does not cut it in my eyes. If every excellent driver drove under the influence, we'd only have mediocre or poor drivers, and chaos would engulf the roads. Why operate at a lower skill level at all?

You certainly know that already, but that's the essential difference between the USA and (most of) Europe, or at least the prevalent mindsets of both regions.


I don't drive, nor have a driver's licence, but driving drunk should certainly be punished harshly. I don't agree with that zero tolerance policy, though, because as far as I know you can rather easily reach a BAL of 0.1 without drinking alcohol at all.

A good friend of mine has an aweful style of driving when sober. He speeds a lot, accelerates rapidly just to brake sharply again, overtakes other cars whenever possible, et cetera, et cetera.. Now when he's stoned (slightly, not out of his mind), he doesn't do all that unnecessary bullshit, he drives smoothly and unobtrusively and refuses to talk a lot instead.

That seems like compensating the higher risk of driving impaired by abstaining from his otherwise risky driving behaviour. I actually feel safer, even though that is highly subjective, of course.

Still:



Obviously, if the driver's wondering why the back seat has no steering wheel, you better take away the keys from him and hide it in your ass.

By the way, what about riding bike while being intoxicated? I tend to do this frequently, because it's an awesome way to sober up a bit before going to bed. Given that I have to use the sidewalks all the time, I bike more slowly and definitely less ruthlessly. Plus, the police can't do anything about it, other than taking away my non-existent driver's licence.

Sorry, was Napero



Explain how? 0.1 is fairly fucking drunk.

By advertising, I meant campaigns to try to get the public to wear their seatbelts. We've even had TV ads for this purpose, which aren't free. Also, sometimes there is a 'quota' for finding violators. For example, to get overtime in some places while working traffic, the cops have to ticket a set number of violators per hour. I believe that there are better things for the cops to do than get collect overtime for ticketing motorists for not wearing seatbelts. If that's what they're going to do, they should just go home.

This is bullshit, I'm afraid. You have absolutely no way of attributing this little anecdote to the effects of marijuana on the population at large, not to mention the complete irrelevance of the severity of the accident.

(1) Guy rolled a jeep on icy road.
(2) Guy smoked marijuana.
(3) Marijuana caused accident.

(1) Isn't that baby/sunset/flower/tree beautiful?
(2) Only God could have made them so beautiful.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

A little parallel, no? ...however otherwise irrelevant >.>

This is interesting:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt_ ... ed_effects

Basically, when non-belt wearers wear seatbelts, they drive more aggressively, which means that if you wear a seatbelt voluntarily, legislation to force everyone to wear one runs contrary to your interest because other drivers will pose a greater risk to you on the road.

I believe that this is only valid for the "first generation" of seatbelt users, since they feel that by wearing a seatbelt they are now safer than before. Drivers who have used a seatbelt from the start do not know a "before", so that wearing or not wearing a seatbelt should not be expected to have an influence on their driving behavior.

Yes, the woman thing was obviously a joke. My main point was tolerance plays a role, meaning you can't say anybody who has alcohol in their system is an "idiot" or a danger to everybody if they get behind the wheel.

Bezerko--wasn't saying you're dumb because you're young, I was saying a few beers to you would do much more than it would to others, making your stance a bit skewed.

I don't condone anybody driving drunk, was just saying a 6 pack affects some less than an energy drink would to certain kids here.

Nobody should be driving impaired, I'm getting redundant here but some people can handle certain levels of thc/alcohol without their driving abilities being lessened, and in my opinion those who say everyone who drives with either of these drugs in their system is an idiot who deserves to be punished is rather ignorant, and comes off as one who has very little experience or has a very low tolerance of these drugs (which there is obviously nothing wrong with).

I think these laws are great. If something has the potential to impair driving, make it illegal. How the hell are they supposed to determine a safe level to drive at, everyone is different in regards to tolerance levels etc.. I could care less if you want to roll a fatty or get hammered every day, just don't put anyone else in danger.

This law is bullshit.
I don't want someone taking my blood. I cannot stand needles, and I'm always alcohol + drug free. Cops do sometimes try stupid things on innocent people.... I don't support this much. The idea behind it is good; but with humans in control errors will happen. Even if they are insignificant it still bothers me.

In Australia it's done with with a swab in the mouth, I assume they'll use the same system.