Drinking and Driving Laws

Great Britain has banned drinking games in bars. The State of Virginia and the City of Huntington Beach, California have done the same. Ontario, a Province in Canada, has put into law the rule that if your blood alcohol concentration is .05 to .08 (.08 being the legal limit for driving under the influence) you will still face serious consequences: you can be fined and your license suspended for three days.

There is no argument against drunk driving rules being strident. But it is left to wonder whether we are going too far: Ontario has said that if you plan on drinking, then don't plan on driving. It is fair to ask whether we may be infringing on individual rights too much in trying to discourage the consumption of alcohol. This is insulting, especially as there is no moral wrong involved in drinking alcoholic beverages.

Drinking games, to be sure, are at least borderline juvenile. Yet that does not seem reason enough to ban them. And while there must be clear legal guidelines as to what constitutes drunken driving, making it virtually a crime to drink then drive at all appears extreme. Individual responsibility is dying at the hands of the nanny state.

This is not to defend alcoholism or drunken behavior. By all means, throw the book at anyone driving dangerously impaired. But to essentially say than any ingestion of alcohol followed by driving is impaired driving strains credibility, and insults the individual. We need to take greater care when devising our laws. We need to remember that responsibility is ultimately in the person, not the state.