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.”
I’m theory I like this idea, make the person that killed the parent and remove that support try to replace it. I just don’t know how well it’s going to work in practice. Like, I don’t know how many drunk drivers have a high enough income that any meaningful amount of child support would be derived from this. Not that a drunk driver being poor or not should get them out of consequences. But like my dad weaseled his child support payments down to $25 a month and it was just ridiculous. It didn’t help at all. But some nice karma on him was that all those years of working under the table to lower his child support meant that when the piece of shit got injured and needed to try to get disability he hadn’t gotten enough work credits in the previous ten years.
I feel like it would probably be better if the state established a fund that they could use to pay out to those kids that they could fund at least partially with fines brought against drivers convicted of DUI. That way we could guarantee some level of support for the kids that lost parents and still force the drunk drivers to at least partially fund it but a kid won’t get screwed just because the drunk driver that killed their parent particularly happened to be poor.
I suspect it will just end in a lot of “Well, the guy that killed your dad was poor, so you’re not getting any child support”.
Not to mention…. Manslaughter. Vehicular homicide with a dui modifier. Not sure about Texas but some places that becomes a felony.
So most duis that lead to the death of someone else…. Are absolutely going to jail.
Which is very much not conducive to paying child support.
Good move by Texas.
you know what prevents drunk driving? proper public transit
From a country with proper public transport here (Norway): people still drive drunk with that, so having some proper punishment won’t hurt you.
There’s also shootings in Norway. The key difference is frequency
Much FEWER people driving drunk, though, which is the point. Just because the solution doesn’t take the problem from 100 to 0 doesn’t mean that taking it to 20 or whatever isn’t beneficial.
Also, “having some proper punishment won’t hurt you” is ridiculously wrong, based on the US having one of if not THE most punitive “justice” system and amongst the highest rates of crime of all western countries.
Prevention and restorative justice works MUCH better at decreasing crime than revenge-based punishment.
The highest incarceration and punishment rate in the world. If you went by the statistics, Americans are, “apparently,” 4.3 times more likely to be criminals than Chinese citizens, and it just gets worse from there, as every other country in the world has even fewer people incarcerated per 100,000 people.
Our punishment system is broken.
Or people could stop it at the source and be responsible. Probably too much too ask.
Fixing issues on the individual level is exactly why america is the way it is. Systems solutions exist
In the same way telling teens to not have sex will stop teen pregnancies.
what is the source? be very detailed in what you’re suggesting please.
Source of what? Drunk driving? That would probably be the individual, who knowing that the only mode of transportation for the night is to drive themselves and still decided to drink and then drive. Is that specific enough for you or are you still struggling with the concept?
Yeah, you’re saying the same thing, public transit.
That’s not what I’m saying at all. That’s what you want me to say, but you are very incorrect.
Wow good job Texas! What if they never graduate high school though 😂
I read the bill. It cuts off at 19 regardless.
Ahh figured it would cover that lol. Thanks!
I wonder how this will work in practice since most of the time if you kill someone under the influence your life is basically over. Not exactly going to be able to pay a percent of your earnings while you are in jail.
nah, cyclist here. people “walk” on vehicular manslaughter all the time. it’s super fucked up. commonly a suspended sentence is issued.
Vehicular manslaughter !== Killing someone by drunk driving. Drunk driving is clear negligence, hitting someone entirely on accident shouldn’t ruin two lives. In those articles it doesn’t say anything about the driver being drunk
criminal negligence causing death is manslaughter.
Yes for drunk driving- I agree. My issue is saying that someones life being ruined if they weren’t impaired and made what was a genuine mistake.
It’s a combination of negligence and vehicular manslaughter.
hitting someone entirely on accident shouldn’t ruin two lives.
Why? Was the victim entirely innocent? Did it result in permanent injury or death of the victim(s)? Would it have been less dangerous if the one who produced the accident did not drive a car? Was the driver incapacitated by alcohol/drugs/anything else? If the answer to ANY of those is “yes”, then it should very fucking well ruin two lives. And if the driver had a license, the entire system that granted them the responsibility of handling a few tons of metal should be considered accomplices until they can fucking prove otherwise.
Or at least have the decency to let the victim’s family decide, don’t take it upon yourself to just casually forgive a mistake if it had no impact on you.
Or at least have the decency to let the victim’s family decide, don’t take it upon yourself to just casually forgive a mistake if it had no impact on you.
No? If you robbed me I shouldn’t be able to decide your sentence.
Why? Was the victim entirely innocent? Did it result in permanent injury or death of the victim(s)? Would it have been less dangerous if the one who produced the accident did not drive a car? Was the driver incapacitated by alcohol/drugs/anything else? If the answer to ANY of those is “yes”
I strongly disagree with that, it is unfair to expect people to be infallible, obviously being under the influence is easy to avoid, and so is negligent. But say a mom’s driving and one of her kids stands up and starts doing something distracting just as a cyclist blows through a stop sign? Or one of many million more possible scenarios.
So if a person runs and appears out of nowhere in front of a moving car and it results in them being hit, the driver’s life should be ruined? It’s called accident for a reason, nobody wanted it.
Yeah, I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen a cyclist blow through a stop sign onto through an intersection where one road doesn’t have a stop sign.
It’s one of the many benefits of cycling. You get perfect visibility of the driver’s anguished expression while they wait in traffic. Unfortunately, the cyclist pays the ultimate price when the driver makes a mistake like having one too many drinky poos at the office party and getting behind the wheel.
This guy was on drugs and frustrated because a “slow driver” ahead of him
This guy was on drugs and frustrated because a “slow driver” ahead of him.
Ah ok than should do jail time.
i 100% agree with you and 200% disagree with the judge and legal system who let him walk
Gee that is just fucking peachy.
Wait until you hear how many people are driving without a license at all.
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I have an aunt with six DUIs. After the second, they all become felonies, which are supposed to be 2 years at least in jail. I don’t think she’s ever spent more than a day in jail. Intoxication manslaughter may be worse, but the courts treat alcohol related incidents with kid gloves a LOT of the time.
Is it Wisconsin? People up there get like 16.
Can confirm, from northern Wisconsin. Definitely have seen people with 10+
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Can confirm. I’m in southeastern Wisconsin, and DUIs are a normal part of life for many people here. The punishments for DUIs and reckless driving are a joke in this state.
My brother spent 3 seperate days in jail for 5 drunk driving charges.
I mean he’s my brother, but lock that idiot up for a while longer, at least.
How about just make financial penalties for traffic violation/vehicular homicide be based upon salary/net worth like Europe?
See that is the opposite of the goal here. This will be a whip on poor people. Making the fine tied to your income would punish the people writing this bill they cannot have that !
Some europeean countries do that, but it’s a minority.
This is where it needs to start.
Really, shouldn’t this apply to all manslaughter and murder cases?
Totally. But the US is obsessed with punishment rather than reparations.
it’s all theatre, take something people love (children, mothers) & something people hate (criminals), now they can justify passing any legislation & continue expanding their control over time without fixing the underlying issues like lack of public transportation. but hey, guns are legal…FOR THE CHILDREN!
More like obsessed with superficiality
And rehabilitation
Should, yes. Does it already exist, yes. It can just be time consuming. Kill one parent surviving parent or guardian or state placed guardian is then supposed to go to civil court and a judge will rule the person pays support. Some would say that is costly but the court fees will end up having to be paid by the person the judge rules against. (Which many attorneys will pick up pro bono because no judge is going to rule that killing a parent(s) didnt cause at LEAST financial/ impact on the child/family.
Maybe. You would basically be created a two-tiered system of punishment. If you kill me you have to pay for my kids, if you kill someone childless you don’t pay.
I am not sure what the repercussions of that would be.
The fact someone can kill anyone, intentionally or not, and expect to be free soon enough to get a job and pay child support is nuts.
I mean sure, but they still should go for a long time to jail.
I don’t know, being in jail means they won’t be able to pay for the child support.
I’d say the better option is a driving ban, with a hars punishment if broken. Making them live on the verge of poverty is IMO better as a punishment and it’s better for the child / society in general
There’s nothing more scary than a person with nothing to lose
So, person that just screwed up their life. Who wants to hire a felon? How is a felon supposed to get to work in Texas without transportation? You’re going to now take a large chunk out of their paycheck?
People are struggling in Texas that aren’t a felon, can drive a car, and get to keep all their paycheck.
How is a person realistically supposed to overcome basically losing everything?
Driving without a license is this person’s last concern, and probably some alcohol will make them feel better…
Agreed. A drunk driver proved that he/she is a danger who takes no responsibility. Permanent revoked driver’s licence is the solution here.
Along with heavy child support should they kill someone’s parents/guardian.
revoked driver’s licence is the solution here.
A lot of people with revoked/cancelled/suspended licenses still drive. We don’t have a good mechanism to actually keep someone from driving.
The cops used to run plates and take action when the registered owner had one if those statuses and the driver had a vague appearance to the owner. In most places they’re not allowed to do that anymore.
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I used to watch a YouTube motovlogger. He advocated after someone got a DUI they can only get a motorcycle license. His logic was they’d only kill themselves. I could get behind that.
That’s not necessarily true. Pedestrians are definitely a thing. And people would still drive illegally without a license to have passengers, children with them, groceries, larger items, ect. On top of that, being a motorcyclist is more dangerous and one could argue that it’s a cruel and unusual punishment to increase the danger selectively for certain people.
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So…if you actually want to have fewer drunk driving incidents…and fewer crashes in general, we know how. You have less car centric infrastructure. Of course youre gonna have drunk driving when bars have required minimum parking when being built.
Yeah this won’t stop a single accident - and it will probably not result in more money for the kids, too since many people won’t be able to pay from prison
But at least the government won’t have to drop a penny. Working as intended!
I’ll always be in favor of heavily penalizing drunk driving and improving enforcement to dissuade people from drunk driving.
That said, it would be nice if we could take a page out of the books of other countries where children and parents don’t have to rely on child support to ensure children get the means necessary to survive.
The current system furthers this game of hot potato which leads to children having a poor relationship with one of their parents and growing up in poverty, all in the name “personal responsibility” and “muh tax payer moneys” while children end up being collateral damage.
We have WIC, food stamps, free school lunches in most areas based on income, and section 8. It isn’t like there is nothing. It might not be enough, and I agree it probably isn’t, but it isn’t some Dickinsonian nightmare.
Most areas? Try 8 states.
https://apnews.com/article/free-school-meals-0c927f491b2ee9d4ce7e04b44da79e51
i take it you haven’t been truly poor for any significant period of time.
Was homeless twice and my parents were failures at everything except making more kids. I have also been to the developing world quite a few times.
Whatever just keep making this about me, that seems like the way you want to go about this.
i just made the one comment - saying it’s not a Dickensian nightmare seemed not to demonstrate an understanding of what some folks are dealing with - not having a home, enough to eat, basic medical care, safety.
i’m surprised, given your own experiences, that you seemed to imply what others are going through in the face of insufficient resources is not, after all, that bad.
Ah yes, the programs that are so broken that they mainly serve as a cudgel against any form of criticism, rather than actually effectively lift people out of poverty.
Not to mention that politicians won’t let any opportunity go to waste to try and break down those programs further.
Don’t take my word for it, look at the child poverty ranking amongst the 34 OECD countries where the US is placed 31st, with 1 of every 5 kids you see growing up in poverty.
Meanwhile many other countries just plainly periodically give parents a bag of money in the form of child allowance, eliminating the need for free school lunches and teachers burning their meager paychecks on classroom essentials.
The closest thing that comes to this is the Child Tax Credit, still meager in comparison, but nevertheless eroded to a joke because we “care so much for the children”.
To call it a Dickinsonian nightmare might go a bit far, then again, you dragged that straw man in here, but the fact that child labor is back on the rise in the US suggests that those times are far from behind us.
This, unfortunately, makes hit and run the most viable strategy in Texas.
Why? A drink driver was already going to be in a world of trouble before, this just doesn’t leave children hanging for their bull shit.
Because this goes from a 10k-50k fine and a few years in jail to a million(s) dollar fine. Suicide is the only viable out unless you are uber rich.
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.
Could take a Uber/Lyft.
I deal with this issue, the big bus station and my house are divided by a highway. So me and my buddies go out it either has to be very local or I have to take a rideshare for a five minute drive home.
I live in a city where taking an Uber or Lyft a few miles is like $25, maybe $50 at the last call surge. Unfortunately ride-sharing is a lot more expensive in cities that don’t also have good transit, so I keep getting reminded that $25 is cheap for a ride share across any distance.
Back when I used to go out drinking, catching the last train home or taking an Uber was my go-to choice. I don’t drink much nowadays, but the rush home in an area without good transit infrastructure is still something I think about a lot.
Oof sorry
not everyone can justify that every time they go out with friends
People need to live within their means. It’s not a human right to go get drunk every weekend. If you can’t afford it, you stay home.
Or get drunk at home
the big bus station and my house are divided by a highway
Why does this have to be a thing? In my country they have bridges for pedestrians over the road, or underground passageway.
Because america
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.
It shouldn’t, but unfortunately it’s a big part of our society.
Those poor murderers, they couldn’t help themselves.
i would go further and say it’s a big part of human culture generally.
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
I’ve thought about that before, personally, drunk driving is SO UNTHINKABLE to me, it’s never even occurred to me at any level of drunk. All the way down to near blackout drunk.
If the thought of killing someone doesn’t deter you that much, then maybe definitely ruining the rest of your life will have that effect. And if you really can’t trust your drunk self, if drunk you is so much more stupid, then yeah, society needs to scare you out of drinking in the first place.
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Yeah, exactly. It’s the same reason why punishment is only a deterrent to crime to certain extent, and it doesn’t work absolutely.
You could make the punishment for shoplifting be summary execution, and it would still happen on a regular basis. Because people think they won’t get caught, even with evidence of lots of people having been caught before.
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.
That’s an interesting take, that going drinking without a plan to get home without driving drunk would considered premeditation. I don’t think I agree with it exactly, but it certainly should be an enhancement to manslaughter.
There’s actually precedent, like they’ve actually convicted someone of murder for drunk driving before. Maybe a few times, but I’m sure it’s exceedingly rare.
I don’t drink, but I’ve known plenty of people that can have a potent margarita, hangout for an hour or two, and then hop on one foot or do a cartwheel just fine.
I have serious doubts those folks are any more of a danger to anyone than the average driver or the average tired or emotional driver.
I guess what I’m saying is… it’s idealistic to never be impaired and always be at 100% but there’s a tolerable amount of impairment where realistically it’s not going to have an impact, and I think the law takes that into account appropriately as is; so as to say driving after a drink is not the same thing as driving while drunk. It’s not the folks genuinely having one or two, it’s the folks that had “one or two” (12) barely made it to their car and then went down the road.
I have serious doubts those folks are any more of a danger to anyone than the average driver or the average tired or emotional driver.
I think I agree with that except that I think that that is equally a problem. I don’t think people should be trusted to drive, en masse, out of necessity. There are too many things that make it dangerous when people really don’t have a lot of choice in the matter, and may have to drive when they’re not actually feeling up to it.
That’s valid. There are definitely a lot of people I bump into that I go “man how did that person get a license!?” Granted, everybody makes mistakes.
We really need to crack down on tailgating in the US though, it’s out of control. It doesn’t get you anywhere faster and it ensures everyone on the road is less safe.
There’s something about driving that innately dehumanizes - I swear I’ve actually seen studies about this. When people are behind the wheel, they don’t relate to the world around them as personally, empathy kind of disappears, it all becomes something like a game, and everything between them and their destination is just an obstacle to be overcome.
Drinking is a personal choice.
Yeah, people should have the right to choose to drink, and then choose to drive, and “accidentally” kill someone.
That isn’t what I said and you know it. Drinking is not something a person should have to justify to anyone but themselves. This is not an endorsement of drunk driving and no one assuming good faith would have assumed I was making one.
You have a right to put a chemical into your own body. It only becomes an issue for those around you when A leads to B and B is other people either getting hurt or very nearly getting hurt.
Well, I didn’t get what you were saying. In this context, I don’t why tf anyone is even talking about infrastructure.
And then your statement seemed like a non sequitur. So, I was just saying what my read of your statement was.
I don’t think people normally say things like what I said, legitimately accusing the other of saying that. But as a hyperbolic expression, for the sake of highlighting a misunderstanding.
Sorry I snapped at you.
No worries, jumping to the hyperbolic tone was also a bit snappy of me.
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The good news is if everyone keeps driving eventually snow won’t be an issue for you.
Yes, I agree people are allowed to do absolutely idiotic things without consequences.
Drinking is a personal choice. Getting drunk affects more than yourself.
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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.
Explaining is not forgiving.
.
“No offense, but you’re fucking stupid.”
Like that kind of thing?
I mean, you said it.
lol
Anything said before the word ‘but’ can be ignored in these instances.
You have to design around stupid, because this is the real world. People can only expected to be rational sometimes, and in aggregate, you need systems that expect people to take whatever is the most obvious or easy choice available to them, whether it’s actually a good idea or not.
Yeah yeah, public transit good, we know. STFU already. You fuckers are worse than vegans.
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It needs to be addressed. Or people are gonna keep voting for pro-car politicians
Yeah. “One more lane” is something that a lot of people unironically think, it’s not just a meme, so trying to ensure that everybody knows how silly that is and how much harm it causes is one of the main ways that that line of thinking can be destroyed
Punitive damages for killing a person have to be a hell of lot more than paying the cost of child support.
Correction, this is Texas, so you’ll have to pay if you’re poor or not right wing politically connected. If you can afford proper counsel, you won’t.
Don’t mess with Texas.
Texas is too busy messing with Texas for anyone else to fit in.
Fuck drunk drivers
