The subject of indoctrination came up in my recent Captain Planet post and we started making a list of things that kids are indoctrinated about: the environment, drugs, and smoking.
One of the things I remember quite clearly is drinking and driving. Or rather, a bunch of kids being brought into an auditorium and being shown some grisly pictures of drinking/driving ads. They told us about how terrible it was to drink and drive.
What they were apparently less clear about was that “drinking” was specifically a reference to alcohol. I mean, I’m sure they mentioned alcohol, but they weren’t as clear as they needed to be that it was only alcohol that was a bad idea. A lot of kids went home and freaked out when their parents were drinking a soft drink or coffee in the car.
A few days later, the principal clarified over the intercom that it was okay if our parents drank coffee or soft drinks while driving, and that it’s only a problem if it’s alcohol.
What’s kind of funny about all of this is that I wouldn’t be surprised if years from now, drinking a soft drink on the road will be fully incorporated into the War on Distracted Driving.
I don’t like the current campaign of: Buzzed driving IS drunk driving.
No, buzzed driving is buzzed driving and drunk driving is drunk driving. Two seperate things.
Personally, I drink and drive all the time. No worries.
Comment by Mike Hunt — September 19, 2011 @ 5:05 pm
At some point, in order to drive, we will probably have our heads encased in a locked VR helmet with a squished 360-degree view, no music, no noise except for the external microphones to pick up other cars’ horns.
Either that or we’ll have fully auto-drive cars and it’ll be illegal to engage manual drive on auto-drive compliant highways.
Comment by web — September 19, 2011 @ 5:51 pm
Mike, to quote myself:
As with so many other things, though, the reasonable basis for a law pushes it towards being something much more problematic. On this Balko makes a number of good points. We lowered the legal intoxication level from .1 to .08 in our War Against Drunk Driving when the main issue is with people that have a BAC of twice that level. Billboards say “Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving!” when no, actually, the two are quite different. But the law doesn’t see it that way. And when you keep lowering the limit, you can actually make things worse. When you make it so that people equate the two, you’re not just telling people that are buzzed that they’re as bad as someone that is drunk (even if they aren’t, which is why we have two different words to describe the two different conditions), you’re also telling buzzed people “Go ahead. Have another beer. You’re already ‘drunk.’”
Comment by trumwill — September 19, 2011 @ 11:17 pm
Well that’s two of us
Comment by Mike Hunt — September 20, 2011 @ 9:37 pm