Low Level Impaired Driving

As I was reading this was thinking an excellent article for this long weekend, unfortunately many are not going to read till after the weekend.

As a person that admits to having a heavy foot it has always been one of my complaints regarding the issuing of tickets. I have always said the reason speeders are picked on is one can sit on the side of the road and just pick us off. And due to over a 100 years of brainwashing by law enforcement the majority go along with this policy. On the other hand if you were working in a factory and had claimed one activity was the cause of the majority of the accidents yet the accident rate hadn't changed. Do you think you would still be employed?

When you are doing the enforcement and investigating the accidents ones biases can influence the report. And it always bothers me that hours are spent investigating accidents yet it is almost impossible to get the results. The reports need to be easily available on a website. There should be no need to go through FOI to only receive a redacted report. Going one step further perhaps where a serious accident happened a QR code can be transmitting to each vehicle the full report to be available the next time the vehicle is turned off.

I'm going back a few decades here but I remember a accident in Vancouver where a person ran a red light and T-boned a vehicle in the intersection. The cause of this accident was considered an alcohol related accident. The person that ran the red light was sober, the person that was hit blew over the legal limit. Therefore it was considered a alcohol related accident. I do not believe in drinking and driving and much favour the 0.0 level. I use this incident to show how statistics can be manipulated to emphasis your point. How many accidents are put onto the speeder when it really was another factor? Above accident was not caused by impairment it was caused by running a red light. Yet that was not what it was classified as. I have no idea what the tickets issued were, just what was considered the cause of the accident. 

Back in the infancy of the Internet I came across a report regarding fatigue. I forget how many hours one had to drive before they could be considered at the same level as an impaired driver. It made a big impression on me as up to that point I was one that thought nothing of driving non-stop between fill ups. It changed my attitude. 

It changed my attitude and it was an argument I used with a friend that never drove over the speed limit. I would ask him who would he prefer to be the next vehicle in line. The person that had just taken a break and driving over the speed limit or the person that had been behind the wheel for several hours with no break?

So back to my old argument on this. If the police really wanted to lower the accident rate they would forget about the speeders and focus instead on poor driving habits. Where the problem comes is you can sit on the side of the road and just pick off the speeders, the other requires a little work. 

Then due to the 100+ years of brainwashing even getting a judge to agree that someone that is driving the speed limit or slower can be a hazard will take a lot of work.  

Technology has come a long way. It is impossible for a police officer to tell by observing a vehicle doing the speed limit whether the person is impaired by drugs, alcohol, fatigue. The enhanced safety features in new vehicles can. Currently Audi, Mercedes and Volvo do monitor for drowsiness. It won't be long before all new models are. Maybe in the future as the police are sitting on the side of the road harassing speeders as each vehicle approaches it will transmit a signal saying hey this drivers impaired by ?? and should be pulled off the road and issued a ticket the same as the speeder. Or better yet pull to the side of the road and not be able to put in motion till minimum conditions met.

After a hundred years of picking on one aspect, technology will enable the police to go after the real problem on our highways.