Most states already have legal limits of Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) for individuals but under this plan, the state government would also create a system in which an aggregate cap is formulated based on the driving population and the number of all DUI offenses and the limits of blood alcohol concentrations recorded in past violations.
As an example, every person over the age of eighteen would get a single .06 Blood Alcohol Concentration allowance certificate (BACAC) every six years. After six years of good driving without alcohol related driving violations, he would receive another .06 certificate that can be added to the previous allowance for a total of .12. After six more years, another certificate and so on. If you never drink, you can sell your certificate(s) to those unable to meet their limits. Sounds great, huh? Some could accumulate many certificates if they’re wealthy, say up to a limit of .54 BACAC’s. The .06 certificate cap could eventually be lowered over time to further reduce drunk driving. As certificates are turned in for violations, they are retired and the aggregate of allowable violations is reduced.
For instance, if you’re trying to open that tenth bottle of Guinness by folding your cell phone over it to twist the cap off and you happen to come to an abrupt and jarring air-bag collision into the rear end a state trooper on the shoulder of I-90, no worry. Just whip out your .24 allowance certificates after the .21 breathalyzer results and you’re free to go with a simple failure to stop ticket.
Okay, let me first explain here that before you write my name in for Governor, I would hope that you consider this idea of drunk driving cap-and-trade intellectually indefensible and morally bankrupt, if not just plain silly. But no more so than the Emissions Cap-and-Trade schemes offered by certain politicians for reducing corporate smokestack pollution.
I’m bringing this up because this is exactly how emissions cap-and-trade works. What it really does is allow others to break the laws of limitations without circumspect or punishment, but only if they have money. On the surface it is meant to create a system to provide financial incentive’s for reductions in let’s say, drunk driving, by assigning a cost to all drunk driving damages inflicted on society and state using mathematical formula’s and ratios. The clincher of course is that cap-and-trade, exactly like the commodity it is designed to limit, requires damages and fines against violators of the system anyways.
Taken seriously, cap-and-trade for any pollutant, be it greenhouse gases or drunk driving can be easily corrupted by individuals who purchase and retire certificates and hence drive up the price of the remainder according to the law of demand.
The point is, why bother with this circular path of declining capitalization if the intended results can only be achieved through enforcement and punishment anyways?
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