Saturday, November 21, 2009

Tougher DUI Laws?

New York State would make it a felony to drive while intoxicated with a child in the vehicle and would require first-time convicted drunken drivers to buy a device that prevents them from driving their cars if they have been drinking, under a bill passed by the State Assembly on Tuesday.


Even libertarians agree that DUI laws make sense. I fear, however, that these particular enhancements to New York's laws are driven mainly by emotion:

The push for harsher drunken-driving penalties follows two recent crashes in New York in which children were killed while traveling with adults who had been drinking.


My guess is that the felony charge will often be bargained down, or police will let violators off with a warning because the felony charge seems excessive.


The provision for locking devices may again have little impact in practice, as those affected disable them, or use other cars.


I do not have an obviously better alternative to offer, but I am not convinced these enhancements to the DUI laws will change much.

6 comments:

Milton Recht said...

Your paper, "Does the Minimum Legal Drinking Age Save Lives?" showed that MLDA laws have a minimal impact on teenage drinking. Do DUI laws decrease the incidence of drunk driving? Or drunk driving accidents? Are alternatives such as the designated driver campaigns more important in changing behavior?

As you mention, police will and are currently letting some offenders off with a warning, offenses are bargained down and offenders continue to drive.

Additionally, there is a cause and effect issue. Do people who have aggressive, asocial, risky behaviors, such as tailing, speeding, ignoring stop signs and red lights, turning without signaling, etc. get into accidents and they also drink because it is a risky behavior or is it the drinking that causes the accidents? While I am in no way approving drinking and driving, I think it is more often a concurrent behavior and not a cause.

The law is probably more punitive than preventive. It is also a law that provides more comfort to the general population by the public's perception that the government is doing something than by the law actually achieving any reduction in the aberrant behavior.

Eric B said...

Nicely put, Milton.

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