… the blame belongs to the a$$holes who have ten drinks and get behind the wheel… quit blaming the bars and start blaming the pathetic excuses for human beings that drive after drinking that much.
Not to mention unless a person is falling over or acting obnoxiously it is very difficult to impossible to tell who has reached their limit.
When we go out we take taxis. They aren’t expensive. I would rather pay $20 for a cab than $10,000+ for a DWI or god forbid kill somebody on the road. Everybody else needs to start doing the same.
Shame on insurance journal for printing a garbage article like this one. The bars don’t put these people behind the wheel– they put themselves behind the wheel.
“But most efforts focus on punishing the driver and not preventing drunk driving by focusing on those who enable it.”
That’s because the responsibility lies with each and every individual to monitor himself (/herself) and stop when they’ve had enough, or not put others in danger by driving while intoxicated. To focus on the restaurants and servers is to ask them to babysit their customers. This is not their job nor should it be. Also, approaching it this way infringes on the rights of the more responsible to get wasted and take a taxi home.
Ironically, the only time I’ve ever been refused additional drinks, I was barely buzzed and lived a 2 minute walk from the restaurant.
Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where people seem to want a nanny state. And it has nothing to do with ideals or party affiliation; most legislators and politicians subscribe to this mentality. Laws can’t stop bad things from happening; people can.
In all of 2008 across the whole US, there were only 2,440 drivers with a BAC >= .08 that were in a multi-vehicle crash where there was at least one fatality. (Source: NHTSA FARS Database)
Someone explain to me if we have many millions of licensed drivers in the US why we are even bothering having this discussion if less than .00000001% are actually involved in a crash? Mind boggling
James C. Fell presently is a Senior Program Director at PIRE. He has been at PIRE since May, 2001. Mr. Fell formerly worked at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) from 1969 to 1999 and has 42 years of traffic safety and research experience. At NHTSA, he was Chief of Research and Evaluation for Traffic Safety Programs and Manager of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). He has authored over 100 scientific publications in the areas of highway safety, alcohol impairment and human factors research. Mr. Fell served on the National Board of Directors for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) from 1999-2006….
Another MADD blowhard pushing prohibitionist agendas through bs statistics. Fell managed the FARS datbase yet doesn’t bother to understand the numbers in it.
Why is the federal government in the business of defining what Binge Drinking is? If you look it up, it’s 5 beers at a sitting. So if you are at a party, have 5 beers ( 1 per hour over 5 hours) you are now labeled by the federal government as having an alcohol problem and being to impaired to operate a motor vehicle.
Per MADD and the NHTSA, drinking in this fashion would not put you over the per se limit of .08. So is the waste of taxpayer money on this propaganda really about binge drinking or is it about stopping the consumption of alcohol period?
Who is going to be the first company to require people to have an insurance policy to drink in public regardless if they are driving or not?
it should be a personal responsible for their own actions, but here’s the problem. most of these folks would rather send it to another source for saying they allowed them to drink. WOW! in many states, it is authorizing to sue the bar that gave the drinks. problem, is that the bar does not put them behind the wheel or even take their keys. it’s a difficult situation that we want to correct, but we have many things going wrong. first of all, why 21? afterall, we can sign up w/the military at 18 and end up going overseas and be able to drink beer and wine! we already charge anyone over 18 as an adult for any crime, why not dwi! how many kids going to college are drinking underage anyways? we know that it’s not being enforced. so we allow the kids to break the law that we can’t enforce. that is like we placed a speed limit of 55 and yet, the cops allow us to go 63 or better. so, who do we blame? let’s get real, and remember we are responsible for our own actions.
The reality is these thoughtless drunks who choose to get behind the wheel very rarely end up killing themselves or their loved ones. Instead they end up killing innocent people and their loved ones who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and all they get is a slap on the wrist.
Let me reiterate that it doesn’t matter the party, legislators legislate. I’m also getting sick of explaining to people why the Czar/Communist comments make them sound stupid.
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… the blame belongs to the a$$holes who have ten drinks and get behind the wheel… quit blaming the bars and start blaming the pathetic excuses for human beings that drive after drinking that much.
Not to mention unless a person is falling over or acting obnoxiously it is very difficult to impossible to tell who has reached their limit.
When we go out we take taxis. They aren’t expensive. I would rather pay $20 for a cab than $10,000+ for a DWI or god forbid kill somebody on the road. Everybody else needs to start doing the same.
Shame on insurance journal for printing a garbage article like this one. The bars don’t put these people behind the wheel– they put themselves behind the wheel.
“But most efforts focus on punishing the driver and not preventing drunk driving by focusing on those who enable it.”
That’s because the responsibility lies with each and every individual to monitor himself (/herself) and stop when they’ve had enough, or not put others in danger by driving while intoxicated. To focus on the restaurants and servers is to ask them to babysit their customers. This is not their job nor should it be. Also, approaching it this way infringes on the rights of the more responsible to get wasted and take a taxi home.
Ironically, the only time I’ve ever been refused additional drinks, I was barely buzzed and lived a 2 minute walk from the restaurant.
Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where people seem to want a nanny state. And it has nothing to do with ideals or party affiliation; most legislators and politicians subscribe to this mentality. Laws can’t stop bad things from happening; people can.
In all of 2008 across the whole US, there were only 2,440 drivers with a BAC >= .08 that were in a multi-vehicle crash where there was at least one fatality. (Source: NHTSA FARS Database)
Someone explain to me if we have many millions of licensed drivers in the US why we are even bothering having this discussion if less than .00000001% are actually involved in a crash? Mind boggling
James C. Fell presently is a Senior Program Director at PIRE. He has been at PIRE since May, 2001. Mr. Fell formerly worked at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) from 1969 to 1999 and has 42 years of traffic safety and research experience. At NHTSA, he was Chief of Research and Evaluation for Traffic Safety Programs and Manager of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). He has authored over 100 scientific publications in the areas of highway safety, alcohol impairment and human factors research. Mr. Fell served on the National Board of Directors for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) from 1999-2006….
Another MADD blowhard pushing prohibitionist agendas through bs statistics. Fell managed the FARS datbase yet doesn’t bother to understand the numbers in it.
Why is the federal government in the business of defining what Binge Drinking is? If you look it up, it’s 5 beers at a sitting. So if you are at a party, have 5 beers ( 1 per hour over 5 hours) you are now labeled by the federal government as having an alcohol problem and being to impaired to operate a motor vehicle.
Per MADD and the NHTSA, drinking in this fashion would not put you over the per se limit of .08. So is the waste of taxpayer money on this propaganda really about binge drinking or is it about stopping the consumption of alcohol period?
Who is going to be the first company to require people to have an insurance policy to drink in public regardless if they are driving or not?
youngin’, maybe Obama should appoint a binge drinking Czar so communism can take over everrrrry thing we do.
AMEN!
it should be a personal responsible for their own actions, but here’s the problem. most of these folks would rather send it to another source for saying they allowed them to drink. WOW! in many states, it is authorizing to sue the bar that gave the drinks. problem, is that the bar does not put them behind the wheel or even take their keys. it’s a difficult situation that we want to correct, but we have many things going wrong. first of all, why 21? afterall, we can sign up w/the military at 18 and end up going overseas and be able to drink beer and wine! we already charge anyone over 18 as an adult for any crime, why not dwi! how many kids going to college are drinking underage anyways? we know that it’s not being enforced. so we allow the kids to break the law that we can’t enforce. that is like we placed a speed limit of 55 and yet, the cops allow us to go 63 or better. so, who do we blame? let’s get real, and remember we are responsible for our own actions.
The reality is these thoughtless drunks who choose to get behind the wheel very rarely end up killing themselves or their loved ones. Instead they end up killing innocent people and their loved ones who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and all they get is a slap on the wrist.
Let me reiterate that it doesn’t matter the party, legislators legislate. I’m also getting sick of explaining to people why the Czar/Communist comments make them sound stupid.