I like this idea
Over at Reason its asked Why Don’t We Incapacitate Drunk Drivers?
The usual means to punish drunk drivers is to suspend or revoke their driver’s license. Whilst this will work as a punishment for some others will just continue to drive, often whilst drunk.
This punishment hits the repentant who stop drink driving, but it costs them a lot. To those who continue to flout the law, this has no effect so they continue to put lives at risk.
New Mexico had a severe problem with drink driving, the worst in the US. One measure they adopted was to require all those convicted of drink driving to have a device which does a breath test each time before they drive. This means that repentant drink drivers can keep driving whereas those who try to drink drive will be prevented from driving.
Costs are carried by the driver so this does not cost the tax payer anything.
I see no civil liberties or privacy issues with this, its a perfectly reasonable addition to license requirements. Their status can be noted on their license to prevent them using hire cars without such a device fitted.
It solves the problems of simply removing the license too and given it reduces drink driving it will also reduce insurance premiums for the rest of us.
I wonder if we’ll see anything like this over here?
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February 14th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
There is a direct response to this issue by Steve Chapman. The link is here
February 14th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
It’s a rubbish system. All you need is someone willing to do the breath test for you or thinking outside the box and doing something like pumping up a balloon with a foot pump and then putting it over the tube. Quite simply such systems are far too easy to circumnavigate.