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Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

To play devil’s advocate:

People forget that drunk driving laws started as the result of activist campaigns from special interest groups only a few decades ago.

It is itself a victimless crime; we have existing laws against reckless driving, causing accidents, vehicular manslaughter, etc.; and as this study shows there are plenty of common, less regulated (i.e. showing no signs of impairment yet blowing into a measurement device cannot get you nailed) driving conditions which are as bad or worse than drunk driving.

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It seems like a "victimless crime" in the same way that a hit and run is a victimless crime, as long as you get away with it.

Someone has willfully chosen to make life more dangerous for everyone else. It's possible they won't be caught, but ignoring the act carries a real possibility of harm.

There are people who would drive drunk every single day, if they could get away with it.

> hit and run is a victimless crime

Not clear on your logic. A hit and run has a victim: whoever is the owner of the person or property you damaged.

In contrast, a drunk driver who is not under excess influence of the alcohol in his system and who gets from point A to point B safely, has victimized no one.

>In contrast, drunk driver who is not under excess influence of the alcohol in his system and who gets from point A to point B safely, has created no victims.

And what of the drunk driver under excess influence who creates a victim?

presumably he is still subject to the laws that relate to creating a victim

I am sure the victim will feel very happy to have played their important part in finally bringing this scofflaw to justice.

The founder of madd in america thinks they went too far though.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2002/aug/6/20020806-035...

> Candy Lightner, MADD’s founder, says she disassociated herself from the movement in 1985 because she believed the organization was headed in the wrong direction.

> “It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned,” said Mrs. Lightner, who founded MADD after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. “I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving.”

> Several years after she left MADD, Mrs. Lightner briefly represented the American Beverage Institute in its fight against the 0.08 percent BAC law. She also lobbied Congress to enforce tougher penalties for drunk drivers.

Maybe she took up that position after getting hired by the beverage industry or not I don't know but she did lose a child to a drunk driver. 0.08 is probably too strict as the consequences of that are really severe and as evidenced basically no more impairing than widely used daily antihistamines.

I would sooner drive after a couple beers with dinner than after taking Benadryl (diphenhydramine). That’s not because I think alcohol is safe to drive on.

I’ve used doxylamine (similar antihistamine) as a sleep aid and I wouldn’t trust myself to do much. It was hard just getting ready for work because of the brain fog the next morning.

WTF, it's not a victimless crime. You have a much higher chance of getting in an accident and killing someone when you're drunk. Someone dies every 50 minutes in America from drunk driving accidents.

Shooting a gun into a crowd and not hitting anyone is also a "victimless crime", that doesn't mean it isn't high risk behavior that should be discouraged. The reality is that the large majority of drunk drivers are chronic drunks and drunk driving rules are pretty effective at taking them off the road.

>the large majority of drunk drivers are chronic drunks and drunk driving rules are pretty effective at taking them off the road.

That's a good point. Aren't you now arguing though that the vast majority of drinkers, who are not chronic drunks, be punished for the actions of a few?

The vast majority of drinkers, and this includes many of the chronic drunks, aren't being punished at all by these rules! Because they don't drive after drinking.

Driving is inherently dangerous, regardless of impairment. Laws prohibiting drunk driving prevent excess deaths that would otherwise be commonplace if the practice were normalized.

I am in favour of total drug legalization (as consumption/possession are true victimless crimes) but impaired driving should remain prohibited. While it impossible to curtail all instances of impaired driving, we should aim to reduce its frequency where possible.

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