Online registries for sex offenders are searchable across the country—allowing people to find out where those convicted of sex crimes live and what their offense was. It makes the public feel safe and it gives the lawmakers who proposed and passed the bills a sort of political clout, as they seem most interested in public safety and being tough on the worst criminals of all. But, the sex offender registries have shown little if any impact on recidivism. So, why are lawmakers now suggesting states spend millions on everything from drunk drivers to fierce pets? [Read more…]
Car Alcohol Detection Bill Moves Forward
A bill to provide research funding to develop passive alcohol detectors as standard equipment for all new vehicles is moving forward with 9 co-sponsors in the US Senate.
Preventing Drunk Driving With Alcohol Detectors in All Cars
There was an article in the Washington Post about technology being developed to passively detect alcohol consumption, to be installed in all new vehicles.
Any system that can stop drunk driving before it happens is worth discussing, both pros and cons. Any such technology always comes down to a public safety vs. civil liberties trade-off. Is everyone a suspect without any due process? [Read more…]
Fighting Drunk Driving By Stopping Drinking
A New Mexico company is hoping to stop drunk drivers by stopping alcohol sales to anyone convicted of a DWI. [Read more…]
How Does a DUI/DWI Affect my Car Insurance?
Note: The Following is a guest post from CarInsuranceComparison.com
There are many monetary and lifestyle changes in store for anyone convicted of a DUI/DWI. Second to legal issues, the first question is usually related to car insurance. Most drivers want to know how their car insurance is going to be affected by their DUI/DWI. That can be a difficult question to answer, as it will vary based on state law, prior driving record, and the car insurance company policy. [Read more…]
DWI Laws in SD – Tough, not Adversarial
South Dakota has some of the toughest drunk driving laws in the country, particularly for multiple offenders. If you are convicted of a 2nd offense DWI, in addition to license loss and fines, you will be required to abstain from consuming any alcohol for a 3 month period.
The program is South Dakota’s 24/7 Sobriety Project, and according to news sources, it has helped keep the drunk driving recidivism rate at half of that of those in other states. [Read more…]
Drunk Driving Campaigns – Public Safely or Hype?
As we head into another holiday weekend, there is an aggressive media campaign to prevent drunk driving and emphasize aggressive enforcement efforts. But do these efforts significantly reduce incidents of drunk driving? Are they an effective way to promote public safely? [Read more…]
MADD Spending Practices
Via Lawrence Taylor, comes a report that MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) was rated poorly by several charity watchdog groups about it’s spending practices. According to the sources Charity Watch and Charity Navigator, MADD spends 2/3s of it’s budget on staff, salaries, and overhead, leaving only one third for “charitable work and victims services”.
Charity Navigator rates them a 1 out of 4 stars, and Charity Watch gives them a grade of “D”. Charity rating organizations expect good organizations to direct at least 60-70% of their fund to their charitable purpose.
Is MADD a Charity?
At this site, we blog about civil liberties and criminal justice issues. And we are critical of MADD’s goals of ignition interlock devices for any first offense drunk driving charge, and future mandatory alcohol sensing devices in all vehicles.
But just this once, I am going to defend MADD for being a badly run “charity”, because I don’t think they are a charity.
They are a lobbying and issue advocacy group.
I may not agree with their issues and goals, but that doesn’t mean that they have not been effective.
And it doesn’t seem quite right to judge them by the same measures as the Red Cross, or Doctors without Borders. MADD’s goal is not to distribute goods and services to those in need. It is to push for legislation and social change.
Whether or not their CEO is worth $234,ooo/year, half a percent of the organization’s overall expenses, is not for me to decide. But it is the work that the staff produces, and how effective they are at influencing legislatures that matters to those who would donate money to this organization.
Alcohol Detecting Sensors to Be Standard in All Cars Within 10 Years?
A bill to study alcohol sensing devices as standard equipment in vehicles is being supported by a number of congressmen and senators. A proposed amendment to the 2010 Motor Vehicle Safety Act, would calls for funding of $40 million over the next five years to develop alcohol detection sensors. These sensors could be in the form of sensors in the steering wheel that measure alcohol by skin contact, and visible light to measure BAC through spectroscopy.
So many questions remain about these alcohol sensing systems. Will they become mandatory equipment, like air bags? That is the goal of organizations like MADD. If so, exactly what threshold will be a violation? .08% BAC, legal limit? Or lower? Most ignition interlock devices are set to .02% BAC, or essentially any detectable amount of alcohol. Will it make driving after 1 drink illegal? What will be the consequences of triggering a lockout on these devices?
According to The Hill, MADD’s position is that the alcohol sensing devices are “passive, unobtrusive, reliable, accurate.”
How can these systems be considered reliable and accurate of they haven’t even been fully developed and tested?
MADD has a goal to completely eliminate drunk driving, something that we can all support. But these mandatory monitoring systems that treat every driver like a criminal go way to far.
Ohio DUI Database for Multiple Offenders
Ohio now lists “habitual offenders” with 5 or more DUI (OVI) arrests on a public state database. Is the purpose of this to warn the public, create a shaming disincentive, or simple keep the flow of public information?
The fact is, it is unfair to compare very old drunk driving charges to more recent ones. Old drunk driving arrests were treated differently. In many cases the person plead guilty, paid a fine, and that was that. Especially before the social stigma of drunk driving took hold, and MADD become a strong national organization, drunk driving was not considered a huge problem. Yet now, decades old convictions carry the same weight as current ones, for penalty purposes, ignition interlock device requirements, and online public records.
In any case, that the genie is out of the bottom on public records on the internet. Whether states release the data themselves as Ohio is doing, and Connecticut also does is a minor point. The information is considered public data, and is available to anyone who knows where to find it.
Data aggregators advertise background checks on tv, and sell this information online cheaply. Online background checks are now a booming business.
But this reality has real consequences for people who’ve made a mistake, that is suddenly much harder to live down then they may have ever realized.
Related info:
Ohio OVI Laws
