
A Simple Fix for Drunken Driving: Modest, Immediate Penalties - nradov
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-simple-fix-for-drunken-driving-1439564251
======
DenisM
There is so much more to this experiment than drunk driving!

It shows that modest, swift, carefully metered punishment is a lot more
effective than the more traditional slow, but heavy punishment.

This is a big deal, because it shows a promising path to _dramatically_ reduce
the US prison population. Don't mind the drunk driving, think about all of the
crimes out there, and all of the people who got a hammer dropped on them.

~~~
aidenn0
As a parent of a difficult child, this is not at all surprising.

What little evidenced-based parenting advice is out there[1] suggests the same
thing: taken individually, immediate minor punishments are as effective as
major punishments. The big advantage comes with the fact that the parent can
be more consistent as minor punishments are typically less work than large
ones. Consistent annoyances are better at provoking change than occasional
calamity.

1: If you thought the story for evidence-based medicine was bad, just skim
through the parenting books at a book store.

~~~
dlss
The result here isn't what you said:

> taken individually, immediate minor punishments are as effective as major
> punishments

The result here is that frequent minor punishments are 72% _more effective_
than infrequent major punishments (see the article on Hawaii's 5 year study of
this approach linked to by
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10064425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10064425)).

~~~
jeorgun
If I'm understanding right, grandparent isn't saying "effectiveness(minor,
frequent) == effectiveness(major, infrequent)"; they're saying
"effectiveness(minor) == effectiveness(major) && effectiveness(frequent) >
effectiveness(infrequent)".

~~~
aidenn0
That's exactly what I was saying, though this (and my original comment) was a
simplification.

------
hammock
I always find it interesting how many people automatically agree drunk driving
should be a crime. Drunk driving per se is victimless- only when life or
property are injured is there a victim, and there are already crimes/legal
remedies in place for those cases.

Consider the case where a drunk driver gets home safely while obeying all
traffic laws. Or even the case where a drunk driver is swerving- she can
already be pulled over under a reckless driving statute.

~~~
superuser2
Sobriety is one of the conditions of the social contract you sign (literally,
on your license application) in exchange for access to society's roads.

Jail time is not really appropriate. Really, you should just lose access to
public roads. But license revocation is adulthood revocation for all but the
privileged few in SF, NYC, and maybe Chicago. In most of this country you
can't get groceries or primary medical care without driving, and you certainly
can't hold a job or provide a normal life for your children. A five-figure
fine and even a month or two in jail is many times less severe than permanent
loss of driving privileges; that's life-destroying (pretty much your only
option is to drop everything and move to a high-cost-of-living area of a high-
cost-of-living city to get adequate public transit coverage).

~~~
titanomachy
> license revocation is adulthood revocation for all but the privileged few in
> SF, NYC, and maybe Chicago

This is almost certainly true in America, but keep in mind that some other
societies view driving somewhat differently. America represents less than one
twentieth of the world's population. In major European cities, at least, car
ownership seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

~~~
nmrm2
It's not really true in America, either. The (small) European cities I've
lived in have _far_ better transit than even major US cities, but any American
city with a "greater metro area" population in the millions will have enough
public transit that you can survive without a car and without living in an
extremely costly area.

It requires some walking and biking, and some employment options do disappear.
But most of those employment options are recoverable because the salaries
(e.g. at suburban office parks) pay well enough to cover the cost of a cab
from the nearest bus stop to the office every morning.

IME the lack of public will to walk a half mile, ride a bike in the rain, or
wait ten minutes at a bus stop is _by far_ the greatest barrier to use of
public transit in America.

~~~
plonh
Using the word "salary", and talking about paying cabs to drive to buses shows
that you ignoring the reality of a huge segment of the working population, who
work hourly, and have childcare needs.

~~~
nmrm2
No, I'm not. I was giving two conditional scenarios, and dismissing the
"salary" one _precisely because_ the people you're telling me I'm ignoring are
unlikely to work in those locations.

To reiterate:

 _IF_ you are not working in an office park off an interstate near an affluent
suburb, most mid-sized American cities have enough transit to get by.

 _IF_ you are working in an office park off an interstate near an affluent
suburb, then you're probably making enough that you can stitch together a
combination of public transit and taxis to get to work from a low-rent area.

And yeah, long commutes suck when you're paying for child care. Which is why a
lot of people choose a child care facility close to work.

Basically, my point was that I know a lot of Europeans whose commute involves
> 1/2 mile of walking. And also a lot of Americans who live in cities that
"don't have any public transit" because they have to walk 1/2 - 1 mile to get
to a stop that takes them directly to work.

I'm not saying American public transit doesn't need to improve. Just that if
Americans always demand door-to-door service, then public transit will never
be good enough. And, more over, will always suck because that's an impossible
demand.

------
rayiner
The program sounds like a very targeted, but also very invasive, ban on
alcohol.

> Sobriety experienced not only a 12% drop in repeat drunken-driving arrests
> but also a 9% drop in domestic-violence arrests.

An interesting fact to consider when people talk about how substance abuse
bans create "victimless crimes."

~~~
abalone
> The program sounds like a very targeted, but also very invasive, ban on
> alcohol.

You could say the same of prison sentences for alcohol-related offenses. Which
is more invasive?

~~~
Natsu
The idea that prisoners have no access to alcohol (among other things) does
not seem particularly reasonable to me.

~~~
Natsu
I see that perhaps I worded this in such a way that I should clarify. I'm
trying to say that I believe that prisoners who want alcohol are able to
obtain it in spite of the prohibitions on it.

~~~
Natsu
Okay, now I'm really curious at who disagrees with that and why? I have known
both inmates and prison workers and have not heard of anywhere that one is
unable to obtain alcohol.

I don't care if you downmod this again, but at least explain why you think I'm
wrong.

------
Asbostos
This is what's broken about people's ability to assess risk and address crime:

" the problem still costs some 10,000 Americans their lives each year."

Imagine if terrorist bombings were killing the same number of people each
year. Maybe a plane load every month or two. Would we ask the psychologists
what might be a more effective way of deterring people from bombing things?
Banning them from flying after they were caught carrying explosives through
the airport doesn't seem to be working well enough.

~~~
bodhi
That was my thought as well. Just to drive the point home:

> costs some 10,000 Americans their lives each year

with

> Maybe a plane load every month or two.

Would have to be _100_ planes/year (at ~100 people/plan)! Imagine if you had 8
plane crashes/month due to drunk pilots!

~~~
Asbostos
Excuse my math problem :P It seems to me that these factors can make people
much more concerned about a danger:

A) Few but large scale killings - eg 100 planes of 100 people each seems worse
than 10,000 cars of 1 person each.

B) A single identifiable group of outsiders that can be blamed. Most people
drink so drinkers aren't outsiders.

But this last factor surprisingly doesn't seem to be a worry, as evidenced by
people's willingness to drive, despite the fact that it sounds like it should
induce terror:

C) Random sudden death without warning.

~~~
bodhi
I agree. Also, I think the amount of input you have into an activity is also
somewhat inversely proportional to the shock when the accident happens.

People actively drive the car, so they may think "I have a chance to affect
the outcome", whereas being a plane passenger is basically vegetating for X
hours in a very uncomfortable seat, and there is _no way_ you can actively
influence the outcome in a positive way.

~~~
unfamiliar
> there is no way you can actively influence the outcome in a positive way.

Which ironically is what makes it a safer form of transport.

------
augustocallejas
This approach is being used a by a judge in Hawaii, with regard to its
probation program:

[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law-july-
dec13-hawaiihope_11-...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law-july-
dec13-hawaiihope_11-24/)

JUDGE STEVEN ALM: I thought to myself, well, what would work to change
behavior? And I thought of the way I was raised, the way my wife and I would–
were trying to raise our son. You tell him what the family rules are, and
then, if there’s misbehavior, you do something immediately. Swift and certain
is what’s gonna get people’s attention and help them tie together bad behavior
with a consequence and learn from it.

MEGAN THOMPSON: These seemingly simple reforms in Hawaii soon produced
remarkable results. An arm of the department of justice funded a study five
years after the program launched. That study found that compared to people in
regular probation, HOPE probationers were half as likely to be arrested for
new crimes, or have their probation revoked. They ended up spending about half
as much time in prison. And were 72% less likely to use drugs. The results
from Hawaii caught the attention of criminal justice experts across the
nation.

------
hackeraccount
[http://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/community/drug-
offende...](http://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/community/drug-
offenders/pages/hawaii-hope.aspx/)

This is the same idea applied to people on probation. The short overview -
typcally when people on probation commit an infraction (fail a drug test, fail
to meet probation officer) there's no consequence the first time, or the
second or the third. Far down the line the consequence happens - the person
goes back to jail for a couple of monthes or years.

The alternative method this program uses is that the first problem results in
going back to jail - but for a short period of time, the way I read about it
was on the order of a weekend. As it turns out immediate inconvenience is way
more effective then a long term possibility of justice coming down on you like
a ton of bricks.

Like the first poster said this is about way more then just drunk driving. I
think it's about more then just criminal justice.

------
ck2
I've had two different friends killed over two different decades by drunken
drivers.

In each case the drunk driver was FAR from their first offense and one of them
even had a suspended drivers license but that didn't stop them.

Prison time to get them sober BEFORE they kill someone is the only answer I
could come up with, but judges never seem to think it is a problem, even after
they kill someone.

Neither of them got any significant sentence (just a few years) for literally
murdering someone, it was like the law sees the other person on the road as
taking their own chances or something just for driving.

------
beachstartup
among my peer group, uber/lyft have done more to curb drunk driving than
anything else. in fact i'm going to go ahead and say it's probably the only
thing that has had any real impact, since nobody i know has ever gotten a DUI
and i've seen some really risky shit go down.

scare tactics and huge fines (associated with pullovers and checkpoints which
are super low probability events) just don't work, that's for sure. i know of
people who literally drove drunk for YEARS until uber came along, then stopped
entirely.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
oh goodness yes

In my early twenties I would occasionally drive home “tipsy” — what felt like
tipsy at the time; in retrospect, I was as drunk as a skunk. But there were no
alternatives! I lived in a spread out western city, taxis were unheard of.

Threats and punishments don’t work on young people who have a psychological
sense of invulnerability. The best way to curb drunk driving is through
practical solutions that have immediate and obvious effectiveness.

All that said, I’m impressed with the psychology behind this program, and it’s
nice to see policy that aims at curbing and solving destructive behavior
instead of profiting off it in the form of fines.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> But there were no alternatives!

Are you seriously suggesting you had no better alternative than to drive
drunk?

There were at least three alternatives available: Don't drink, get a ride with
someone sober, or walk/bike/etc.

~~~
mentat
No alternatives within the acceptable cost window from his perspective. Of
course there are alternatives, sleep on the street, whatever. But those aren't
real when making impaired decisions.

~~~
tene
That's why you make the decision to not get impaired in the first place, when
deciding not to drink because there's no safe way to get home if you do. "If I
drink this alcohol, I will then drink even more, followed by a nontrivial
chance of murdering someone while trying to get home" should not be considered
a choice that's acceptable to get wrong.

~~~
msandford
I've gone out for a few beers with co-workers and found myself having had a
few more than I meant to on a couple of occasions. It's entirely possible to
end up in no shape to drive with absolutely no ill intent.

To argue "but you knew when you were drinking that 3rd beer!!..." is all well
and good, but the point of going out is to enjoy your friends company and have
fun, not carefully monitor your alcohol consumption. The lack of taxis, buses,
trains, etc in many states is a major contributor to drunk driving.

~~~
arrrg
Just don’t drink at all when you drive? I don’t know why you think it
acceptable to drink anything at all before driving.

I think it’s unacceptable for me to drink anything at all when I plan on
driving. That way I have never ever been in a situation where I had to drive
while being drunk. It’s a quite simple heuristic …

~~~
msandford
You're right, nobody should drink ever because they might at some point in the
future have to drive. Problem solved!

I think it's acceptable to drink some amount before driving because I
understand the physiological processes that turn alcohol into not-alcohol and
therefore that at some point after I drink, I will be OK to drive. If that
wasn't the case then having a drink would be a big decision, after which a
person could _never drive a car again_.

The question is proximity. If we go for a few beers and then walk next door
and have dinner (without beers) then I think it's safe to drive home. An hour
drinking two beers, an hour eating dinner, and there should be little to no
alcohol left in your system when you drive. Fine upstanding citizens do this
all the time.

------
javajosh
The unintended consequence of this otherwise excellent program is keeping the
person within distance of the blowing station, and knowing where they will be
twice a day. This is a huge amount of knowledge about a person, and a great
deal of control over their movements.

So, yes, I would be for this program if the government agency administering it
absolutely forbade all other law-enforcement from using their data to
investigate people, and somehow I believed that they would really a) attempt
to do protect the data, b) be capable of protecting the data, and c) allowed
people freedom of movement.

------
bsbechtel
I feel like this is a misleading headline. Law enforcement hands out modest,
immediate penalties for other infractions every day - speeding tickets. Yet
people still speed. This article is about targeting punishment and remedy to
the 'other contributor' to the crime, alcohol, vs getting behind the wheel.

------
known
Psychopaths do not fear prosecution/punishment;

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150127212158.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150127212158.htm)

------
zzleeper
What would be the equivalent for cellphone use? Because the biggest threat for
me while biking is not drunk drivers but those texting and fiddling with their
phones.

~~~
DenisM
How about this:

If you're caught cell-driving, you either pay a large fine, say $750, or you
submit to a program that bans talking while moving faster than 5mph for the
next two months. The cell carrier will monitor the ban and issue citations by
SMS.

So if you opt into this program, and then you're driving down the road, start
talking on the cell phone, and then 30 seconds later BANG! you get a text
message: "That call was $75 payable to the city hall before the end of the
day". Yeah, you can't talk on the bus and stuff, but that's the "punishment"
part for ya.

It's worth a try, I think.

~~~
kanamekun
The trick with using technology to assess "driving while texting" is that
texters are often the passengers in the car. Waze tries to deal with moving
typers by having an alert that pops up thatsays (roughly), "You can't enter
text while moving" \- but has a button that says, "It's ok, I'm a passenger."

The trick with a $75 fine for texting while moving is passengers. If you're
willing to ban texting entirely while moving though, using technology to
assess small fines could work!

~~~
DenisM
I'm not proposing trying to figure out who is driving and who is riding. Once
a person got caught breaking the law, he can't use his phone while moving;
passenger or driver is not important at this point.

The key is to training new habit and making it stick, according to the
article, is to make punishment moderate, certain, and immediate. We can't do
that across the board due to the limitations of technology, legitimate use,
privacy concerns, presumption of innocence and so on. But we sure can do that
to those who broke the law, especially when they opt into it.

~~~
nitrogen
What if the person is on a train? Spending the entire ride not being able to
use one's phone?

------
legulere
How about the idea that not everybody that drives drunk is an alcoholic?

> he penalties [...] are modest. Drinking results in mandatory arrest, with a
> night or two in jail

Which will make you loose your job. Not that modest to me.

------
Havoc
You can't fix this with penalties & frankly anyone that says so is deluded.

Its a question of custom/culture. You need peer pressure that effectively says
"only shtheads endanger others by climbing behind the wheel drunk" (forgive
the language). That is what has an impact on the target audience...not fines
(big/small/immediate/delay...)

~~~
feld
I agree. Take Wisconsin as an example. The culture here is heavily drinking
based. If you haven't visited, you won't understand. Meeting
friends/family/coworkers/strangers? At a bar/pub. 7 days a week. Completely
normal. If you're socializing there's probably a beer in your hand. Even
coffee shops have beer on tap and whiskey/scotch by the dram.

We have 3043 bars for a population of 5,664,893. California has 3100 bars for
a population of 36,969,200.

The states with the highest ratio are N Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin, South
Dakota, Nebraska... Do you see the trend? We have a large % of the population
without a lot of money.

Now, what do we lack? Reliable and cheap public transportation. I can drink
piss beer all night on $20 but you want me to take a cab ride for $30 a few
miles across town? No way. Not a chance people will voluntarily blow their
drinking money on a taxi. At least Uber can be cheaper, but it's not prevalent
or reliable.

Trolly/tram/train/buses to get quickly around town 24/7 for dirt cheap? You
bet people would use them. But you've only solved the issue for a few major
metropolitan areas; it's not feasible anywhere else. The rest of the state is
rurual/farmland. After a long day of work on the farm you want nothing more
than to throw back some cold ones and bullshit with neighbors at the bar. And
then you'll drive home drunk, get up for chores, and start again. The cycle
repeats.

I'm not condoning it. I've had many friends and family members have to deal
with the consequences of their actions. But I can understand their plight.
It's unfortunate.

Public shaming of drinking culture might be the only way to alter the
behavior.

~~~
omegaham
Yep. My girlfriend's cousin lives in semi-rural North Carolina, and it's the
exact same culture. He was mentioning friend after friend in stories and then
later talking about this guy's rehab, that guy's permanent disability, this
guy's suspended license... All DUIs. It's pretty common to get done with work,
drive to the bar, get piss-drunk, and slam into a telephone pole while driving
home on the back roads. And the way he was describing it, it was completely
normal and done all the time. That's crazy to me, but it's how people grow up
and live there. Until that changes, you're going to see the next generation do
the exact same thing.

------
ap22213
In my opinion, drunk driving is way over-regulated.

I understand that there's a limit - a point at which driving drunk is truly
dangerous, and statistically obvious. But, I live in northern Virginia where
drunk driving is a normality. I live in a culture of drunkenness, where the
happy hour is the norm. I live in an overdrawn culture of wineries, breweries,
and distilleries. There are wine and beer festivals seemingly every weekend.
Yet, it's rarely the casual drunk who winds up in accidents (probably of skill
at driving drunk). Yet, I see news of regular fatal accidents of those
aggressive drivers who must get to work or home faster than average.

~~~
aianus
I'm with you. I've been in cars with drunk drivers and they're nowhere near as
bad as soccer moms, taxis and old people. T

They're actually _more_ careful cause they _really_ don't want to be pulled
over.

