Zero alcohol limits imperfectly understood

Solidarity said :

He’s been caught 7 times, I don’t think taking his license away will stop him….

I’d imagine he already have a disqualified licence.

He’s been caught 7 times, I don’t think taking his license away will stop him….

I’ll make comment on this and point out my own errors.
I was convicted of drink driving and received an 18 month suspended licence for a first offence.
I thought that was entirely reasonable and happy to ‘learn my lesson’.
Fortunately no one was hurt or affected by my stupidity.
What I do get angry at is people who I know who have been caught on multiple occasions with a higher reading than mine, and received 12 months suspended licence.
I certainly wasn’t ‘hard done by’, the system really needs to look at harsher penalties. How does a guy get a licence back 7 times?
If I happen to ever commit a DUI again, I’d think it completely reasonable to be taken off the road for good!

Toughen the laws or people won’t learn. Mind you, the people commiting repeat offences obviously have a disregard for wanting to learn anyway.

“I thought drink driving was a serious offence?”

It was a serious offence and then like most legislation there was the inevitable creep so that now ANY alcohol is suddenly an offence. 1/3 according to the media release fell foul of bringing the laws down to zero for particular licences. That means 1/3 previously to the new law would not have been arrested for DUI, ie even 12 months ago.

Bringing it down to zero tolerance made DUI a minor offence probably committed unknowingly by people blowing 0.02, 0.01 after a night out, drinking hours previously and considering themselves fine to drive etc…

If it was a serious offence the limit would be 0.08 and prosecuted/penalised accordingly. Instead it is widely acknowledged by the judicary that having any alcohol at all below that of the 0.05 limit set for a full licence holder is a minor and victimless crime, hence a slap on the wrist and a small fine.

It was brought up numerous times that reducing the limit to zero would have zero effect and simply cause people to get DUIs who are not at all impaired to operate a motor vehicle and create hundreds more minor offences & “criminals” with no result on saving us all from ourselves on the roads.

The repeat high range offenders are the real issue and danger yet as demonstrated the police, judicary, legislators, community has no idea how to remove them from the roads.

To completely troll, when they reduce the speed limits to 20km/h, all licences alcohol limit to zero, roadside drug screening for chemicals left in the body for weeks then you will all be criminals and will all have your car removed from you and crushed. That is the obvious extrapolation of the communities’ tough on crime, nanny state, think of the children attitude.

Hopefully more reasoned approaches will prevail.

screaming banshee said :

Take their liver off them……

Take their brain off of them… they’re not using it anyway if their behaviour on the public roads is anything to go by.

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

Like I keep saying. Take their cars off them………..

What happens when they borrow a friend or family members car and get caught? If you want to stop them driving, then take away their licence, that is their individual personal permission to drive on the roads. Taking their licence off them would be a heck of a lot easier than seizing a physical asset which may or may not be their asset anyway. What would you think if the person was in a hire car? Should the police be able to seize and crush a hire car, just because the person who hired it for that 24hrs decided to break the law, with no renumeration for the business who owns the vehicle?

Also, as Ive suggested before, if you want to penalise someone for this sort of offence, its one thing to take their licence away or take their bomb of a car, but what about some actual penalty such as community service instead of jailtime (which they never get anyway). First offence = 20 hours CS, second = 50 hours, third = 200 hours, etc. People value their time generally more than they value assets or money.

KeenGolfer said :

Mysteryman said :

So the police are allowed to immediately confiscate and impound a car (3 months for the first offence, permanently for the second) for street racing.

It’s a maximum of 28 days for the first offence. It’s in the Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) Act 1999.

I personally tend to agree with you re seizing vehicles for PCA for repeat offenders and/or those over a certain reading. The issue there might be there would be so many cars sezied the AFP would spend so much time and resources that it might not be practicable to do so.

Only if you cant sell the car at auction.

Special G said :

Time to start lobbying government to change the legislation to allow Police to confiscate cars for repeat DUI offences. Write letters to your local member.

Special G said :

Time to start lobbying government to change the legislation to allow Police to confiscate cars for repeat DUI offences. Write letters to your local member.

I would – but I think he’s been caught drink driving previously as well!

Time to start lobbying government to change the legislation to allow Police to confiscate cars for repeat DUI offences. Write letters to your local member.

“I thought drink driving was a serious offence?”

It is but like most offences in this town you have to get a memer of the judiciary to take it seriously…..even while they’re not committing the offence themselves

Mysteryman said :

So the police are allowed to immediately confiscate and impound a car (3 months for the first offence, permanently for the second) for street racing.

It’s a maximum of 28 days for the first offence. It’s in the Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) Act 1999.

I personally tend to agree with you re seizing vehicles for PCA for repeat offenders and/or those over a certain reading. The issue there might be there would be so many cars sezied the AFP would spend so much time and resources that it might not be practicable to do so.

So the police are allowed to immediately confiscate and impound a car (3 months for the first offence, permanently for the second) for street racing, but they can’t do the same for someone with multiple previous drink driving charges who blows over the legal limit, or is driving while disqualified? That doesn’t make sense to me.

And remember… that’s 7 times caught drink driving….. I’ve been RBT’d once inn Canberra in three years. I drive (on average) probably about 3 times per day. It boggles the mind to think about how often someone like this would be drinking and driving.

having a BAC of 0.206 isnt accidental.

I like the idea of car confiscation. or a large chain locked around ankle in garima place for a few days

Clearly the courts are not levying penalties sufficient to stop these people offending.

Yep. I’m infuriated What what should I do with my fury then? How do members of the community demonstrate our frustration with this crap by recidivist drunks?

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

Like I keep saying. Take their cars off them………..

Take their liver off them……

Yep, agree, as with previous discussions, take their cars off them.
And don’t start with that crap about the impact on their families if you take the car. How much more of an impact is it than running that same car into a tree…or worse still taking out a bunch of other people??
Give me one good reason why it’s ok to seize a hoon’s car for burnouts but not a repeat drink driver’s?

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

Like I keep saying. Take their cars off them………..

I have to agree with the Kid – take the damn cars from them and lets see what they do then!

Like I keep saying. Take their cars off them………..

Well what do they expect, they keep giving this dickhead his license back! 7 times???? Like seriously, how many DUIs to you need before you shuold be banned for life. Must give the cops the shits having to deal with this idiot so many times.