http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/us...syahoo&emc=rss
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — The threat of arrest and punishment, for decades the primary tactic against drunken drivers, is no longer working in the struggle to reduce the death toll, officials say, and they are proposing turning to technology — alcohol detection devices in every vehicle — to address the problem.
*snip*
Alcohol detection devices in every car made in America? Does anyone find that a little too overbearing?
Whenever people try and push new DUI legislation it bothers me. In Europe, countries like Germany have a mandatory 1 year prison sentence for DUI. The same penalties are seen in many other European nations.
In America, DUI's are a money making scam. The rich pay for a high-price lawyer, goto re-hab for two weeks, and walk away with a slap on the wrist where as the average joe soap will get a couple weekends in jail, thousands in fines, higher insurance premiums, and ASAP classes which also will cost him out of pocket a few hundred quid.
Now new devices to push up the price of cars for the American auto makers? They already admitted last week that $1,000 of every new car pays for the current health care costs of employees. Should the American public now be forced to pay for yet another cause trumpeted by special interest groups?
On Olbermans report last week he brought up an interesting statistic. Since 9/11 over 150,000 Americans have been killed by gunfire in America. However, not one piece of legislation nor one special interest group has done anything to stop the gun violence. In fact, if you look back at the past decade you will see every year the gun violence rises, hundreds of thousands of Americans killed, and no one doing anything about it.
So why is it when something like this will be forced upon society where as stopping gun violence, something that kills even more people every year than drunk driving?
If America wanted to stop drunk driving they would up the ante - make prison mandatory, take away a persons license for 5 years when caught, and have no exceptions for the rich. This has worked in many countries.
To allow people to buy their way out and focus more attention on the matter while thousands die needlessly in a less trumpeted cause seems a bit off to me.
