Tom, you bring up some very important points here and you state your case well. I think the state's interest isn't so much in preventing individuals from doing something stupid to themselves, but from having that stupid action impact others.

The other issue is that driving is not a right, but a privilege, and the state (in the general sense) already imposes lots of rules and regulations upoon drivers. Is this any more of an imposition than requiring seat belt usage?

Thank you for the compliments. Subjects like this are sometimes seen as taboo, and who wants to be the one coming out against groups like MADD.

But I feel that a free society has risks, and if we truly want to be free we have to live with the consequences of our and other's decisions.

Though it is a privledge, the burden of proof at proving your guilt or innocence when it comes to criminal means does not sit with you, but with the government.

I also think seatbelt and helmet laws are stupid. I think you should wear seatbelts, and I do, but too regulate things for "your safety" is not the purpose of government.

I don't want one of those little buzz killers on my car. I don't mind the seatbelt law as much because it's not keeping you from doing anything, least of all driving.

But I don't want some device determining whether or not I'm fit to drive. The laws against drunk driving are supposed to be the deterrent to it [as well as the inherent danger]. I have to have the freedom to make the choice whether or not to drink and drive.

I'd bet speeding causes more accidents than DUI. Should we put a speed killer in the car to make it conk out at, say, 70 m.p.h to prevent speeding?

The government regulates safety in many areas: the question is where do you draw the line?

too regulate things for "your safety" is not the purpose of government.

Actually, it's not just for your safety but the safety of others. I really don't care if you go out, get wasted, drive yourself off the road and die. You made that decision. The problem is that drunk drivers make decisions for other people too, namely the people who are in the path of their out-of-control vehicle. And drunks tend to live through their accidents while their victims do not.

Letting people have the right to decide what they do is great, when it effects absolutely no other people. When anyone else's life or rights are effected then that is where the government absolutely should step in - this is what a government is for, to protect all of us.

But don't you see, that by doing this, EVERY SINGLE DRIVER will have to prove their innocence before they drive.

If you are happy giving up your rights for a little safety, then good, you do it. You don't deserve liberty or safety then. I will rip the damned thing out if they made me put in in.

And how many rights were infringed "for the public interest"?

what "right" am i giving up here? the "right" to drive after drinking?

personally, this is all silly. they should solve the drinking & driving problem by making the penalty for it just brutal. something like five years in jail. that might make somebody think twice.

This is the last thing I'm going to say.

The Rightyou are giving up is yoru right to privacy and your right to due process. In criminal matters it is the law that the legal system has to prove your guilt.

By requiring that everyone blows into the system it is circumventing due process and self-incrimination clauses of the 5th Amendment of the Constitution.

If you've done nothing wrong, why should YOU have to prove your innocence.

It's a tennant of a free society.

With freedom comes responsibility.

interesting.

this means you'd be against random drug testing for schoolbus drivers? is that different?

i'm not tryin' to be argumentative here, just looking for the whole picture.

The Right you are giving up is yoru right to privacy

Cha-CHING.

I love it when a conservative defends his right to privacy. I thought the right to privacy was fabricated by the liberals on the Supreme Court.

;-)

I have to agree with comment #4. Oh, and #12. Good one!

But while I don't like the idea of ignition interlocks, at least something like that can be defended on the grounds of other peoples' safety. Helmet and seatbelt laws are just offensive and wrong.

The ultimate solution is better mass transit. The best way to make the roads safer is to get people off of them, especially the people who don't care enough about driving to do it well.

How about this? If you refuse helmets, seatbelts, and this anti-drunk-driving device, your insurance is a significant amount more, because when you get into an accident it will be signficantly more expensive to treat you and those you've injured (or killed)?

I love these posts because it reveals how selfish and ignorant people can be. "I don't like seatbelts/helmets/drunk-driving preventatives!" These laws are not for you - they are for all of us. See, when the idiot who chooses not to use a helmet or a seatbelt or chooses to drive drunk gets into an accident, everyone else who pays for insurance gets to pay for YOUR recovery and gets to pay for the damages to whatever else you've hit (be it people or cars or buildings . . . whatever.) So the option I see for the morons out there who refuse these safeguards is this: you get to pay an excruciating amount of insurance in exchange for your "freedom." If I don't have to pay for your stupidity, great, do as you want. My, your, everyone's insurance goes up when some stupid bastard decides not to wear his seatbelt because it was uncomfortable or wrinkled his shirt and gets into an accident. That's when I'm going to be looking to the government to step in and MAKE him wear it.

It's always some ridiculous cry about a violation of what you perceive to be a "freedom," and every time I see one of these things it's exactly what I expect: a selfish whine about having to be put out just a little tiny bit. Never, ever do any of these people consider that it's for the good of everyone. Somehow, I'm still stunned everytime.

I don't drive or have a driver's license (you should have seen the faces on a bunch of people from Wisconsin when I told them this at a business meeting when I asked about cab companies in Milwaukee).

So from my point of view all drivers are murderous assholes. I think about the 80 something old laby who dragged a mother, screaming to her death, for about a kilometre after running her over at a cross-walk. Essentially, unless proven otherwise, all of you are unqualified to operate motor-vehicles.

If you disagree, just suck a tail-pipe.

Tom Johnson:

I love these posts because it reveals how selfish and ignorant people can be.


So being a freedom loving American makes me selfish and ignorant.

My main argument was not against it on personal privacy (though that's some of it) it's mainly because why should I, who have never been accused of a crime, have to prove my innocence of a crime I haven't yet committed?

If that's the type of law you want, I'm sure there are gulags in Russia that need a warden.