to think that anyone who drives while over the limit is scum!!

[memoo]

I am so angry and upset!

Just found out that my friends DS was knocked over yesterday evening by a woman who was pissed! She mounted the kerb and knocked him from his bike.

He lost a couple of teeth and is very bruised but thank God he is ok.

How the hell can anyone think it is ok to get in a car when they're drunk? WTF do they think they are playing at. They should be banned from driving for life.

Yes, I think that would have been fair (the caution). I think he lost his licence.

obviously moronic was the wrong word.

Er no, we're not talking about imposing a dress code on women walking around at night, because they aren't potentially committing an offence, ie nobody gets hurt unless someone else does something to them. They are not causing the problem. You might as well say let's stop anyone walking along the pavement at night in case a drunk driver happens to run them over, because after all the driver will only be committing an offence if someone "makes them" by carelessly landing under their wheels.

Sumfing, is you a bloke?

Did anyone else see that Fraser episode where Niles becomes friends with those men at the gun club and then it turns out that they're those nutters who live in the woods and hate the government and want a revolution.

Does anyone remember that one?

Anniegetyourgun - yeah, I thought it was tenuous myself. I am a fella, yes.

I haven't watched that one! I love Frasier and have a whole box set to go.

Niles is a brilliant character. It's in the same vein as Frasier taking part in a street fist fight, by the sounds of it.

Hah, I thought so, you remind me so much of a chap I used to get into email debates with. He mostly did it for the wind-up value, I suspect, but he did feel very strongly about personal freedom. The TV licence fee was a particular point of contention as I recall.

Re Cory's point: XH turned up at the door a while ago with a patch over one eye. He had just had a cataract operation. Turns out he'd been blind in one eye for ages. Now I know why he nearly pulled out on that motorcyclist a couple of years earlier. He said he hadn't told anyone in case they stopped him driving.

I regularly deal with drink drivers and some of them are so indgnant that they have been caught.
MAkes my blood boil.
They may as well walk around with a loaded gun.

"Chil1234 - ah, well you see...I object to the seatbelt laws as well, alas."

Speed limits offend you as well? Lane-markings? Traffic lights? Driving Tests? MOTs? Would you accept any restrictions on the right of a driver to travel in the manner they see fit, in any vehicle they choose, pissed or sober? Can I recommend a visit to Johannesburg if that is the case? The death toll on South African roads is truly staggering... and its largely because many of its residents subscribe to your rather strange views.

But that's ok Sixty, they should be allowed to walk around with a loaded gun and actually shoot it off a bit, if they fancy it. Just as long as no one gets hurt.

Ah, but Chil, those are foreigners. They don't have the sense of social responsibility we have in this country, or did until the damn' socialists took our choices away. Or... or something.

Have they started selling shotguns in Asda yet?

You can probably get shotguns round the back of our local Asda.

Chil1234 - South Africa is a very good example here, very good point.

Three weeks riding shotgun with a Joburg combi driver and you'd give your right arm for a seatbelt, never mind a law to make you put it on.

Conscious that we've hijacked the OP's thread with all of this 'let drivers be drivers' bollocks. Hope the original drunk driver gets the book thrown at her.

Frasier and Niles plannning a dinner party and blackballing guests furiously until Niles blackballs himself.

Niles with a parrot stcuk on his head hosting a terribly important dinner.

Oh happy days.

YADNBU and Sumfing, driving home from the pub and having a 'lucky escape' (i.e. not hitting/killing anyone) is still a crime - regardless of the consequences, although I'm guessing your post was specifically aimed at generating angry responses.

In spite of the fact that my dad was killed by a drunk driver 21 years ago, some people (certain members of DP's family and some of their friends) seem to think I'm a killjoy because I do my nut when they think it's ok to get behind the wheel of a car after a few pints/a bottle of wine. Luckily, I've been able to dissuade on all occasions, but would have no qualms about doing something more if push came to shove...

I agree with you OP. I've namechanged to do it, because I am so ashamed.

My husband used to do it.

He was convinced that sleeping for a few hours in the car would ensure that when he drove home, he would be under the limit.

It didn't matter how many times I told him that alcohol can still be in your system enough to make you over the limit the next day, he would not have it. He was right, I was wrong, he was not over the limit.

I told him if I knew when he was driving home, I would call the police.

One time he got stopped. After sleeping in the car until he was under the limit (according to him, who has some sort of internal blood alcohol measuring system then?) then setting off in the early hours of the morning.

The roadside test showed him over the limit. He was taken to the police station, where the machine there showed him just under the limit.

I was so furious with him. It took the police arresting him and proving that a few hours asleep in the car does not clear alcohol from your system to stop him doing it ever again.

He hasn't done it again. I have said that if he ever does, when he arrives home I will phone the police and they can come and breathalyse him in the house. I mean it.

Quite appalled at sumfing's distorted view.

Drink driving is dangerous driving and to cause death by dangerous driving whilst under the influence of drink or drugs is a separate offence to drink driving.

If there is no punishment for DD then there is no deterrent. What is to stop chancers who feel they can drive setting out in a car and only by pure luck do not kill anyone?

Have you ever experienced the aftermath of a drink driving death?

"Where we differ is that you wish to punish people for doing something that might have harmed other people, whereas I want to punish people when they actually cause that
harm."

Sumfing - you are looking to punish effect, not intent? That suggests that someone who kills someone through a genuine accident should be given a harsh sentence, whilst someone who wittingly indulges in activities that are likely to cause harm to others will not be punished provided luck means that no one is hurt?

I could not disagree more. Some activities should such as drink-driving should be criminal in themselves because of, in the example, the proven link between inebriation and inability to control a vehicle. Whereas in my opinion it is unfair to punish someone who suffers a heart attack whilst behind the wheel and loses control of the vehicle, survives, but kills someone who ended up beneath the wheels of the car.

Excuse the mistakes in that one! Got carried away.