Time to rethink drunk driving laws

From  

Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner;

The State of Kansas and many other states keep passing tougher DUI laws but are they really make everyone safe or are they just punishing social drinkers who are not impaired?

First they dropped the legal intoxication limits from .1 % blood alcohol to .08 %. The new amount takes little alcohol to reach. Just a few beers can put a person over.

If that wasn’t enough Kansas legislators passed a new law that calls for passing other tests, and even people under the legal limit can get a DUI for not passing the test.

According to The Wichita Ealge;

 

As Alex Bunton counted, she stood with her foot raised off the ground, trying to balance so she could pass a field sobriety test.

Officers from the Wichita Police Department watched as she attempted the one-leg stand and two other tests that made up the field exam.

"I thought I did OK, but I guess I failed it," Bunton said.

Despite struggling with the test, Bunton, a volunteer at T-95's "Don't Drink and Drive Show," stayed below the legal limit of 0.080 when officers tested her breath-alcohol level. She'd had 5 ounces of rum mixed into her Pepsi.

Simply staying below the limit, though, isn't enough, said Detective Rick Baker…..

"It just surprises me on how much you can drink and then you think you're OK, but when you blow into the machines they have here, you're over the limit. And even though you can feel fine, legally you're not fine," said volunteer Rob Rogers, who blew a 0.077 in his second test.

 

But there are now plenty of things that can impair driving, such as sleep deprivation, texting while driving and other use of drugs. Why this obsession with alcohol? Is it really so evil?

Although fatalities from drunk drivers vary state to state from 60% to 37%, the amount of alcohol in the blood is rarely stated and other factors, such as fatigue or being tired are not considered in the statistics.

Although they can point to night time drivers as causing more accidents and weekend driving as well, the statistics rarely state how much over the limit these drivers were. Many times those causing accidents are as high as .2 % alcohol, which is way over the .08% limit now set. The question needs to be whether a person should get a permanent DUI over a small infraction as opposed to someone who is way over the limits.

Our society is way too conservative to look at those statistics.