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Originally Posted by Clodfobble
Well, it worked for Sweden. Their driving limit is .02, and the recommended penalty for driving with a 1.0 (even if you don't hit someone) is 2 years in prison. It's pretty Draconian, but they do have less than half the alcohol-related fatalities we do (measured per miles driven, so it takes into account their smaller population,) and that's even with a drinking age of 18.
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I'm sure if we replicated Sweden's drunk driving laws here it would also have an effect of the number of drunk drivers but since drunk driving is something that the vast majority people know is wrong, or initially know is wrong, and do make attempts to avoid, I don't think making the laws even harsher will be as effective. Ideally, working with the population to create alternative solutions would produce better results. From what I've seen, people truly do want to avoid drunk driving but doing so is sometimes too much of a hassle so risks are taken. However, I am not aware of any other ideas or if they are realistic so the current laws may be the only realistic way to curb drunk drivers.
Also, I usually don't like comparing laws from other countries as concrete evidence. I have never been to Sweden but I'm sure the driving and drinking cultures are different than here in the US, especially in the Midwest, so the same laws may produce different results.
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On the other hand, there obviously still are some number of drunk drivers in their country, even with the harsh laws.
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I have a feeling this is going to be true no matter what as long as people drink, cars are a used form of transportation, and checkpoints are not setup.