In my opinion, MADD did a good thing that went too far. At 0.08 nationwide, it is reasonably possibly to be over the legal limit without being drunk. It could easiliy happen during a dinner, and not even being overserved.
Because of this, DWI is now more enforced but less a social stigma than 20 years ago. Back then if you got a DWI you were either an ****** or a drunk but either way it was obvious to everyone you had a problem. People would say, buddy this is a wakeup call. Now, at 0.08 you can scoff it off as being "barely" over the limit and most people will commisserate that oh, yeah, it coulda been me many times. This is choking our legal system with minor cases and because the jail is 1/2 full of people barely over the limit the guy who blew a 0.20 can plead his off and do a weekend in jail and go back out to kill someone.
In my opinion we should raise the DWI limit to 0.12% and make 0.16% a felony. At 0.12 you KNOW you have been drinking, somone serving you can see it, you are beginning to show signs of physical impairment much like (some)90-year old or cell phone talker of previous posts. While there have been cases where a mildly impaired driver has caused accidents, injury or death, to say that is the only cause factor in those cases is highly unlikely, it is typically one of multiple factors. By raising the limit we could increase the penalties with no more social disruption or expense and greatly reduce the potential for repeat offense and injury.
Now, how to do that from a motorcycle forum, I don't have the answer for that...
