Drunk driving laws to be made stricter in Saskatchewan

It is everywhere. And most people get to where they're going without incident. It's a victimless crime until there's a crash. So why not reserve punishment for those who crash?

Maybe Sask. is going for what BC already has - license suspensions based on .05 roadside test. Quick and dirty, lots of complaints that it doesn't meet the charter, but supposedly effective. It's not a criminal penalty, so falls under the purview of the province.

The point of drunk driving laws is to make the driver not even consider driving drunk because of the penalties he can incur. Remove those penalties, and even more idiots will drive drunk because they are sure they won't have an accident. Drunk driving greatly increases the odds of having a crash, endangering everybody. It's idiotic to only go after them if they have an accident. Like saying it's OK to randomly fire a gun down the street, but only get punished if you hit somebody.

1. I get the deterrence argument. But people who are drunk don't "consider" things...because they're drunk.
2. Amending laws/practices to target the least dangerous drinkers on the road (ie 0.05ers) seems like attacking the problem from the wrong end. Shouldn't we going after the very impaired rather than the mildly impaired? Surely people at 0.05 don't, by and large, present a danger.
3. Your comparison to gun fire on a street is apples and oranges.

The problem I have with the majority of our impaired driving legislation is it's completely arbitrary. 0.05 or 0.08 are arbitrary. Some are impaired at 0.08, some not. Maybe a driver who's had a few beers will drive extra-carefully, slow down, knowing that he's had a few. That person might be safer than every sober driver out there who's speeding, texting, not paying attention, whatever.

But what really bothers me is that a good driver who is impaired is a safer driver than a bad driver who is sober. What we should be doing is looking for bad driving and removing bad drivers. If they're driving badly because they're drunk, take away their license. If they're driving badly because they're just bad drivers, take away their license. If we got the bad drivers off the road, there's less chance that they'll crash into someone driving home from the bar after a few beers.

The reality is that WAY TOO MANY people are allowed to drive. Licensing should be much more restrictive and those who are licensed ought to have much stricter testing and ongoing training and testing. Handing a license to a 16 year old and sending them loose on the streets with no further testing or proof of ability is ridiculous. When it comes to driving laws and enforcement, this is one area where I welcome Big Brother. I wish some eye-in-the-sky was watching all drivers. If that were the case, we wouldn't need arbitrary impairment standards because all that would matter would be quality of driving.

1. Certainly not that cut and dried. I drove drunk many times, certainly considered getting caught. So do most people who aren't totally out of it.

2. Wow, you've fallen into the rightie trap. Is that really your reasoning, that because they set the level at .05 they only go after people people that are mildly impaired? Really?

3. Not apples and oranges at all. Similar incidents of doing something that heightens the likelihood of somebody being harmed. As long as they're not, not problem, eh?

An Edmonton judge just put away for eight years some loser who was high on meth, t-boned a taxi, killed one, and injured three more. I don't see why someone on alcohol who does the same thing gets a much lighter sentence, like six months suspended for killing someone just because it was a first offense or because alcohol is legal but meth isn't . This is where the intent argument, i.e. if there was no intention to cause harm then the offense isn't as great, really made a mockery of the law. If the result is that someone is still dead or crippled for life due to the selfishness of another then what the hell does it matter what their intention was?

We had one in Calgary a few years back where some repeat-offending drunk operating a cement truck literally annihilated an entire family (two adults, three kids) when the impact of his truck with their car blasted the smaller vehicle into a thousand pieces. And when they checked out the cab of his truck it had a bunch of empty vodka bottles in it. Of course he's free now and throughout his five-year sentence there were stories in the papers about his applying for early release because "it was so difficult for him and his family". When someone's that selfish and indifferent to what their addiction and actions could potentially result in then their lack of intent should no longer matter. This is just one of the many examples of how the legal system has gone so wildly off the rails in that basic justice has no chance of occurring because of the deliberate campaign over the years by defense lawyers to remove the concept of personal responsibility from judgments. That the politicians and judges have gone along with so much of this madness is an obscenity.

I have a problem with one part of this article. Andrew Murie (the CEO of MADD Canada) is proposing that the Province establish a zero tolerance for alcohol for people under age 22. I call bullshit. Either one is an adult legally responsible for their decisions, or they are not. There should be no grey area here. If someone is old enough to die for King and country, than they are old enough to consume alcoholic beverages. If someone is old enough to consume alcoholic beverages than the same rules of impairment that apply to everyone else should apply to them as well. Its not fair that someone 20 years old could be serving in the military at CFB Moose Jaw, and they have a different set of laws for impairment than someone a couple of years older than them.There should be no "second class citizens" when it comes to the laws. We have way to much of this horseshit in the States. Adults under the age of 21 get arrested for possession of alcohol. They get arrested and go to adult jail. They go to adult court. They get adult criminal records. The official charge is minor in possession. If they are a minor, than what are they doing in adult court? Why aren't they in juvenile court if they are a minor? This two tier system of being an adult has caused millions of otherwise law abiding citizens to have an adult criminal conviction on their record. The government never misses an opportunity to gain some revenue by running people through the legal mill. There are police in the States whose sole purpose in life is generating revenue through minor in possession charges as evidenced by the following video:

This whole series of videos is nothing but cops busting people who are doing nothing but having a good time. They are not bothering anyone. There are no noise complaints being called in. No assault complaints being called in. Just a dickhead cop hasseling people, and generating revenue for the state to justify his employment.

If someone is old enough to drink than they are old enough to be make their own decisions (right or wrong), and they need to be held to the same legal standards as everyone else.