stellar_muddle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stellar_muddle) wrote2005-05-13 09:08 am
stellar_muddle) wrote2005-05-13 09:08 am
Hmmmm
Just seen this:
Driver ran from cries of dying girl
and
Drink law 'worsened teen habit
Amongst the arguements for the lowered drinking age was the arguement that you are allowed to vote at 18. In response from the above article:
You can start driving a car at 16. Driving a car can kill you. And (as seen with the initial article) others. Yet there is no suggestion to raise the legal driving age. Surely the same arguement applies in that if they have less chance of access to the mechanism for killing themselves, they are less likely to do this.
Unfortunately the fundimental missing argument appears to be that fuckwits are fuckwits and drunken fuckwits are in an entire league of their own. Whether they are legal to drink and or drive or not. Prohibition doesn't work. Getting a sensible attitude to drinking in the first place has a far better chance of at least increasing the odds. Our culture has this strange attraction to binge drinking and getting completely ratarsed. The attitude to transport in the middle of this drunken state is improving but can still be very very scary.
I'm not saying people shouldn't drink. Oddly enough apparently one of my great grandmothers was a strong temperance advocat. And yes, I know I am not exactly famous for getting drunk - ok I have not gotten drunk yet and I am 28, but I do drink occasionally, just in extreme moderation. Just that if people going to drink over the legal limit they do so in a safe and secure environment where any transport during and after is by someone who is sober, not the person who has had the least to drink.
Unless you wish to be the one walking away from a injured friend's screams because you are too drunk to give a fuck.
Driver ran from cries of dying girl
and
Drink law 'worsened teen habit
Amongst the arguements for the lowered drinking age was the arguement that you are allowed to vote at 18. In response from the above article:
Mr Bell said: "We know the argument about being able to vote when you are 18. Voting doesn't kill you."
You can start driving a car at 16. Driving a car can kill you. And (as seen with the initial article) others. Yet there is no suggestion to raise the legal driving age. Surely the same arguement applies in that if they have less chance of access to the mechanism for killing themselves, they are less likely to do this.
Unfortunately the fundimental missing argument appears to be that fuckwits are fuckwits and drunken fuckwits are in an entire league of their own. Whether they are legal to drink and or drive or not. Prohibition doesn't work. Getting a sensible attitude to drinking in the first place has a far better chance of at least increasing the odds. Our culture has this strange attraction to binge drinking and getting completely ratarsed. The attitude to transport in the middle of this drunken state is improving but can still be very very scary.
I'm not saying people shouldn't drink. Oddly enough apparently one of my great grandmothers was a strong temperance advocat. And yes, I know I am not exactly famous for getting drunk - ok I have not gotten drunk yet and I am 28, but I do drink occasionally, just in extreme moderation. Just that if people going to drink over the legal limit they do so in a safe and secure environment where any transport during and after is by someone who is sober, not the person who has had the least to drink.
Unless you wish to be the one walking away from a injured friend's screams because you are too drunk to give a fuck.