I was home alone last night so catching up on my bits of the Sky box I don't subject my better half to.
During one police motorway interceptor police camera cops episode there was the inevitable person who was totally ****faced, 3 or 4 times over the limit I think and the police officer was telling the camera that driving whilst over the limit was crazy dangerous etc etc and likely to cause an accident or death. He ended up with a paltry fine and a 12 month ban.
And then it occurred to me that if I was walking around with a knife for example even with little evidence I planned to use it I could very easily get a custodial sentence, you could for lots of life threatening things, similarly if you were just blindly firing a gun etc etc you'd end up in prison. Hell you can even end up in that position for affray or doing other stupid things whilst "in drink".
And then I got to thinking that driving when drunk, especially when hammered really is very likely to end in disaster and you're in a fast moving pile of metal easily capable of killing someone so why aren't you charged accordingly? When you consider the potential for death surely a custodial sentence rather than the inconvenience of license loss is more appropriate?
I've no particular axe to grind on this, I just thought it curious that something that society seems to unanimously agree is super dangerous is punished with a fine and a year or 2 not being able to drive, surely a trigger at say twice the limit where you're going inside for 6 months no questions would be more of a deterrent?
During one police motorway interceptor police camera cops episode there was the inevitable person who was totally ****faced, 3 or 4 times over the limit I think and the police officer was telling the camera that driving whilst over the limit was crazy dangerous etc etc and likely to cause an accident or death. He ended up with a paltry fine and a 12 month ban.
And then it occurred to me that if I was walking around with a knife for example even with little evidence I planned to use it I could very easily get a custodial sentence, you could for lots of life threatening things, similarly if you were just blindly firing a gun etc etc you'd end up in prison. Hell you can even end up in that position for affray or doing other stupid things whilst "in drink".
And then I got to thinking that driving when drunk, especially when hammered really is very likely to end in disaster and you're in a fast moving pile of metal easily capable of killing someone so why aren't you charged accordingly? When you consider the potential for death surely a custodial sentence rather than the inconvenience of license loss is more appropriate?
I've no particular axe to grind on this, I just thought it curious that something that society seems to unanimously agree is super dangerous is punished with a fine and a year or 2 not being able to drive, surely a trigger at say twice the limit where you're going inside for 6 months no questions would be more of a deterrent?
