A new law in Texas requires convicted drunk drivers to pay child support if they kill a child’s parent or guardian, according to House Bill 393.
The law, which went into effect Friday, says those convicted of intoxication manslaughter must pay restitution. The offender will be expected to make those payments until the child is 18 or until the child graduates from high school, “whichever is later,” the legislation says.
Intoxication manslaughter is defined by state law as a person operating “a motor vehicle in a public place, operates an aircraft, a watercraft, or an amusement ride, or assembles a mobile amusement ride; and is intoxicated and by reason of that intoxication causes the death of another by accident or mistake.”
Damn Texas. Sometimes you do manage to do something right.
They did something that wasn’t evil, just stupid. I guess that is a win for texas. There are already systems to make people pay damages to other people without having the child go trough the indignity of getting child support from a murderer.
This is just a debt trap. It won’t help any kids because the kids can’t get money from someone who is in prison, but it does make it harder for people who commit crimes to pay their debt and rejoin society. If the law specifically gave these support payments priority over fines payable to the state I’d feel differently, but the real point of this is to just pile debt on someone who can’t earn money.
Punishing drunk drivers is well-deserved, but as long as car-dependent infrastructure encourages drunk driving, it is considerably more difficult to actually decrease the rate of it. Taking a taxi is expensive and being a DD is no fun, so people take stupid risks. If you know you can take public transit home, there’s no reason to take such a risk at all.
If only there was something to do besides getting drunk. Or if only there was a way to stop drinking before you get hammered.
Car dependent infrastructure has very little to do with people making bad decisions. Getting drunk shouldn’t be a given.
People can enjoy a drink responsibly, but you shouldn’t drive even if you’ve only had a couple of drinks. Even a small amount of impairment is unacceptable when you’re controlling a machine that could easily kill other people by mistake.
I’d argue anyone drinking and getting behind the wheel is making a conscious enough decision to make it murder. And I hope that more cases end up going that route of prosecution
A little philosophical, but the drunk person who decides to drive is a different person than the sober person who decided to drink in the first place. Punishing the sober person for the decisions made by the drunk version of themselves is maybe misguided, except for as a deterrent that says “don’t turn into a drunk person that can make stupid decisions”
I’m not sure what the right answer is to this problem. Just some food for thought
That’s just about the least convincing take I’ve ever heard. You can absolutely punish the person who made the decision to impair themselves beyond the ability to make rational decisions. They came from the same decision to get drunk by the sober person. A person who has a propensity to get drunk and drive is a danger to everyone and needs to be dealt with accordingly.
I think you missed my point. My point is that the crime the sober person makes is deciding to become impaired. That’s different from saying the sober person made a decision to drive drunk - the drunk person made that decision, not the sober person. There are 2 different people here in this scenario. Whether the law should treat it that way is a separate discussion. It would have some similarities with a “temporary insanity” defense.
I did not miss your point. I thought it was entirely unconvincing. The other person is the same person just with the disadvantage of being fucked up.
Edit. Furthermore, I believe that the drunk self is just an amplified version of the sober self. My theory is that if your drunk self is capable of doing bad, so is your sober self.
Drinking is a personal choice.
Yes, I agree people are allowed to do absolutely idiotic things without consequences.
Drinking is a personal choice. Getting drunk affects more than yourself.
This honestly reads like a defense of drunk driving, blaming the lack of infrastructure for bad decision.
Edit: or something very close to that.
But if you’re just saying we should design around stupid, then I guess I can agree there.
…as long as you totally ignore the opening statement
Anything said before the word ‘but’ can be ignored in these instances.
“No offense, but you’re fucking stupid.”
Like that kind of thing?
will it turn into a chinese model where the driver is now looking to run over the kids too?
