Excessive Persecution of DUIs?

The Hypocrisy

America is an interesting place. We live in a country where personal transportation is so important that tax dollars are dedicated through Medicaid to provide obese people with rascal scooters.  All this to help them make it to the fridge after 3 heart attacks and thousands of dollars of healthcare expenses passed on to the taxpayer to compensate for of a lifetime of bad personal decisions.

The same politicians who decided that this was a good and fair idea, all in order to protect the rights of regular people to do what they want with their bodies, have no problem punishing the consumption of one beer with a revocation of driving privileges, leaving actual contributing members of society unable to drive to the grocery store, or often even to work. This can cost them their ability to provide for their families in the process. How many people have to suffer for what should be a minor infraction?

The Harm

The revocation of what amounts to a basic need in American society should not be contemplated unless the driver has a demonstrated substance abuse problem, is driving recklessly, or is well and truly drunk. A regular driver after one beer is still a much better driver than most old people, and should not be lumped in with junkies.

Revoking a driver’s license is one thing in a little European village where everything is munchkin sized and all the stores and businesses are within walking distance. This is America though, and it doesn’t work like that. Revoking a license often results in the loss of the victim’s job and severely curtails their future employment opportunities.

Now the federal government wants us to lower the legal limit from 0.08 to 0.05% here in Michigan, as if that was the solution to traffic accidents. How many of the 10,000 lethal traffic accidents  involving alcohol in the USA per year are cause by someone under 0.08%? If any of them are, can we really blame the alcohol at that point? Or are they shoddy drivers?

This is harmful to society and to the economy. It leaves entire families without any income, it deprives an employer of his labor force, and it decreases competition for workers, which also harms businesses because they can no longer hire perfectly responsible workers who are punished by overzealous legislation.

The Solution

There are mechanisms for driver’s license restoration, but it is an industry that shouldn’t be nearly as large as it is. If you look at the link in the previous sentence you will find that law firms consistently have a success rate over 90% when attempting to restore suspended and revoked licenses.

To me, this says that far too many are suspended and revoked in the first place. According to a CDC study, 112 million Americans admitted to driving drunk in 2010. Almost none of those Americans caused accidents, and with a limit that may now be lowered to 0.05%, any one of them could have had their licenses revoked under the current law.

Only the few who got unlucky and were stopped did lose their right to drive though. We should make the law consistent with the reality and stop persecuting responsible drinkers because of overly paranoid zealots who have disproportional influence over government, influence that can come back to bite even the politicians who make a career of pandering to them.

Tyler Knapp enjoys learning about our rights as American citizens and spreading awareness of our rights to fellow citizens. He is a freelance writer on behalf of Grabel & Associates who specialize in Michigan license reinstatement.