The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that all 50 states lower the blood-alcohol limit for “drunk driving” to .05. They say this move will really help raise more money for – Uh, I mean it will “make people safer.” If you’ve been paying attention at all over the past, say, forever, you know that anytime a government agency “recommends” the states do something in the name of “health and safety”, it quickly becomes more of a black mail/mandate situation than an actual suggestion.
Of course, drunk driving is very bad and it does hurt or kill many people every year, but backdoor prohibition is very bad also, and that’s what this would be. To give you some perspective: I’m a 6’1’’, 190 pound American man of Irish descent. If I have two small beers at Chili’s and drive home two hours later, my BAC will likely be over .05. Would I be impaired? No. Would my ability to drive be at all hindered? No. Is there any conceivable reason why my safe and reasonable actions should lead to prosecution? Not a one. Would I be arrested and charged if I got pulled over for a broken tail light, and the officer simply smelled the hint of Sam Adams on my breath? You bet. The highways and byways are chock full of people on prescription medications, not to mention grandmas and grandpas with severely diminished eye sight, coordination and reflexes, but we’re going to keep seeking out the dangerous criminals who had a tall Coors three hours ago. Yes! Great plan! Turn more average adult Americans into criminals because you need more “funding” to create more agencies to hire more of your friends to create more laws to make more criminals to get more funding to create more agencies to hire more of their friends to… And so on, until infinite.
Again, I’m not saying drunk driving isn’t a serious problem. I’m saying we aren’t helping stop it by inventing other problems that don’t exist. And if we’re sincere about cutting down on ACTUAL drunk driving, we wouldn’t be entertaining the notion of purposefully manipulating the laws so that MORE people qualify as “drunk.” The NTSB defended their proposal by pointing out that nearly 10,000 people die, and 170, 000 are injured, in “alcohol-related” traffic accidents every year. Guess what? That statistic means nothing. Nothing at all. Do you know what qualifies as an “alcohol related” accident? ANY accident where ANYONE involved had ANY alcohol at ANY point in the last several hours. True story. In other words, if you have a glass of wine at 5pm, and three hours later you get struck by a vehicle while legally and safely crossing a crosswalk, that’s counted as “alcohol related.” If anyone involved – either a driver or a pedestrian – registers a .01 Blood Alcohol Content, they log it as “alcohol related.” If you are sitting at a stop light and you get rear ended by the jerk behind you, it’s going to be alcohol related if your drunken self made the mistake of consuming an alcoholic beverage of any amount at any point in the last several hours. You don’t have to be anywhere close to inebriated or over the “legal limit”, you don’t have to cause the accident, and it doesn’t matter if you’re the victim, they’ll call it “alcohol related” if you consumed alcohol at some juncture prior to the incident.
I ask you: Why intentionally inflate the numbers in such an absurd way? I’ll answer for you: Because they have an agenda. If you want to solve a problem, you don’t go to great and dishonest lengths to make the problem worse than it is. However, if you want to USE a problem to your own benefit, that’s exactly what you do.
Here’s a general rule. Any time you hear statistics, figures, “facts”, “data”, or “information” from a government agency – double check it. And then check it again. These sociopaths lie about everything. Seriously, everything.
Screw these people.
Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.