Guest Post by Eric Peters
It is important to make distinctions. To know exactly what we are talking about before we “do something” about it.
For instance, drinking and driving and drunk driving. There is a distinction to be made here.
An important one.
Why on earth should it be illegal – a crime – merely to have been drinking and driving?
Emphasis on merely.
Put another way, why should it be a punishable offense to have been drinking when one’s driving can’t be faulted? Unless of course the object of the exercise is to impose a kind of low-rent Prohibition – to punish people for drinking – this makes no sense at all.
But it does seem to be the object of the exercise.
Which is why the law increasingly package-deals the consumption of alcohol – any alcohol at all – with “drunk” driving. Those under 21 (who may not legally buy, possess or consume alcohol) can be convicted of “drunk” driving if they are found with even a single empty beer can in the car at a “sobriety checkpoint.” It does not matter whether the driver even drank the single can of beer. The presence of the empty can is sufficient.
Continue reading “Drinking and Driving vs. Drunk Driving”
