I was going to say its hypocritical to require bars to have parking spaces while also complaining about drunk driving, but Richmond eliminated parking minimums in 2023. Changing the laws around drunk driving does little to curb it unless there are alternatives to driving. And Richmond is doing some of those. They have a bus only transit system, which includes a partial BRT with partial signal priority, and all busses are all fare free.
Most of the main routes stop at midnight, and the partial BRT runs until 1AM. Its late enough to be feasible for a night out at the bar, but only a prudent one where you’re consistently aware of the time.
Richmond’s city council seems to be doing a decent job by american standards.
Locking people in cages won’t improve car dependency, bike/ped safety, public transit, etc.
When all you have is a fascist hammer, everything looks like a reason to encage and torture people.
I’m ok with the people willing to risk my safety for their convenience being engaged and tortured, if we’re being honest. My only objections that they won’t include “having a phone where you can reach it” as a form of being under the influence.
And the legal limit for BAC while driving should be .02, so even giving the drunken carholes .05 is far too generous.
Part of me doesn’t understand how tweaking a legal limit is likely to have meaningful impacts on crash statistics, but I guess that part is wrong since studies on Utah’s .05 limit change in 2018 have shown reduced crashes, so do it.
On another note: isn’t it wild that the only legal way to get home from the bar is to pay to be driven in a car?
Or you take the night bus, unless you live in America. Idk how it is in other countries but we have night busses in Czech republic and you can always walk since there’s a pub pretty much on every corner.
Where I live there are public intoxication laws which apply to both walking and public transit. And that isn’t super uncommon outside the US.
Also, it’s absolutely nuts that a DUI in an F-150 on the freeway and a DUI on an ordinary bicycle are considered the same legally.
I don’t see this making much difference unless those 37% of crashes were done by drivers with a BAC between 0.05 and 0.08. My guess is that the alcohol related crashes were probably above anyway.
Sure it’ll catch a few more in that interval after the crash has already happened or in random stops, but if they actually want to avoid the crashes they need other measures. Lower speed limits would help more, but I guess it’s more important to focus on finding more people to blame than to avoid the crashes.
IMO, the limit should be 0.00. Motor vehicles kill plenty people with a sober driver. This is a step in the right direction and I hope other states follow the lead.
At 0.0, breathalysers can’t be used as evidence. They’re not accurate enough.
For what it’s worth, in US aviation, the standard is 0.00 BAC and 8 hours “from bottle to throttle.” But breathalyser evidence is treated with a 0.02 threshold for measurement tolerance.
IMO car dependency should be abolished so impaired people aren’t forced to drive - whether drunk, disabled, old, etc…
Yes, sure it doesn’t hurt to lower it. At 0.00 though, they will at some point encounter somebody who is sober but has auto-brewery symptome or other kinds of digestion related diseases.
Anyway, all I’m saying is that the legal limit doesn’t stop anyone from drunk driving regardless of what it is. They do it anyway - maybe because they’re drunk or something.
The better solution is to lower the speed limit in cities and make the necessary road designs to keep the speed at less than lethal even if someone is drunk. My main concern is keeping other people safe from the stupid decisions made by drunk drivers.
They do it anyway - maybe because they’re drunk or something.
They do it because we live in a car dependent society. There is no other option. People who drink regularly (which people will do) can’t afford to pay for an Uber every day.
Putting people in jail does absolutely nothing for the fundamental problem of car dependency.
Love it! Any reason why we can’t have both?
That’s a really stupid way too say 63% of crashes did not involve alcohol. Why not focus on that number instead?
This is apparently part of a comprehensive plan to bring traffic deaths to 0.
https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2026/08/27/richmond-vision-zero-dangerous-streets
It is possible to get to very near zero deaths.
They could do this by setting much lower speed limits and strictly enforcing them. They’d also need a public awareness campaign, etc. Say, 40MPH on freeways, and 25 everywhere else. There would still be outliers, the rare death would still occur, but it would be damn near zero. Obviously, though, they’d be voted out of office at the next election, so they’d never dare try it.
And, since this is “fuck cars”, removing cars completely from downtown streets, replaced with walking, bicycles, and some electric vehicle transportation for the elderly, large parcel deliveries, etc. would also help. Solar panel covered walkways, more trees, and under path heating for snow melting would be good. Though I don’t think they get a lot of snow in Virginia. There are many, many ways we could improve our lives, if we’d put aside the petty billionaire-manufactured differences we let divide us, and pulled together instead.
What’s needed now is a comprehensive vision, a popular, widespread, realistic visualization of how life could be that avoids showing the social “woke” parts and concentrates on things both sides would agree with. The internet has taught us we need to avoid the trigger subjects because if too many people lock onto those, that’s all they’ll talk about. Show the bicycles, walkways, trees, solar panels, electric cars, etc. Leave out the people altogether, except sketches like architects use for scale reference. Just show the infrastructure, let people imagine who it’s for on their own. Nothing too futuristic, people need to visualize how their current world could be better. If we use AI for anything, it should be stuff like this--use their tools against them.
Reading the document I linked, it seems the prevailing philosophy is, “What is the LEAST we can do to prevent traffic deaths?” They want to find dangerous streets and intersections and then maybe step up police enforcement, which does nothing. We need infrastructure change. Since they’ve started their project, traffic deaths have doubled, which, you know, maybe is a sign that their approach does not work.
But maybe the idea is just so the city can pretend to care without having to burn any political capital pissing off the auto autocracy.
Putting people in torture cages is profitable for the people whom politicians serve. That’s why it’s literally the only thing they’ll do.
Since they’ve started their project, traffic deaths have doubled, which, you know, maybe is a sign that their approach does not work.
More prisons needed. \s
Probably. “How can we use this project to arrest more people, preferably minority?”
Spoiler: They won’t follow through on any of that “comprehensive plan” except for the part where they put people in torture cages.
Edit: Read “the comprehensive plan”… Putting people in cages is their only idea.
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