[wyager]

>How is "you could have done something bad," grounds for punishment?

Unfortunately, this kind of thing pops up in the real world a lot as well too. "You're riding a bicycle after drinking a few beers? You could have crashed into someone! DUI felony charge for you!"

[enraged_camel]

Driving under the influence is categorically different. You are a real danger to others and can maim or kill them. How is that even remotely comparable to navigating to a personal website in class?

[wyager]

We are literally talking about the thing that makes them similar. You are being punished because you could have done something wrong, not because you did something wrong.

[losvedir]

No, they're still not the same.

> You are being punished because you could have done something wrong, not because you did something wrong.

No, with drunk driving, getting behind the wheel IS wrong, regardless of the outcome. If someone plays Russian roulette, and they live, do you just go, "oh, no big deal, I'm not going to be upset about something that could have happened"? No, you judge every decision based not in hindsight, but based on what is known at the time. Driving while impaired is wrong, full stop. If you repeat the drunk driving experiment 100s of times, you'll see accidents more often than sober driving, but you shouldn't just punish those who get into the accidents, since they've made the exact same decision as those who are lucky and happened not to.

In the "loading the web page" case, it's like getting made at someone for pulling the trigger of a known empty gun because it "could have" instead been a gun that had bullets in it. If the kid loads the webpage 100s of times it will always be the same web page, with no issue. It's not like sometimes it will be a page with a virus on it. So in that case getting in trouble for "what you could have done" doesn't make any sense.

IOW, you shouldn't punish people based on "what they could have done", but you should punish people based on "what could have happened".

[wyager]

Fair argument. I'm convinced.

[lmartel]

No matter how drunk you are, it's hard to maim someone else with a bicycle. You might knock someone over, but you're really only a danger to yourself.

[UnoriginalGuy]

As a pedestrian I disagree. I've actually seen cyclists knock someone down (it was a pure accident, no drinking involved as far as I know) and they were pretty badly injured (ambulance, etc). Last thing we need is cyclists drunk, they're dangerous enough when sober.

[Zancarius]

Hell, they're even a danger to other cyclists when sober!

My girlfriend was injured a couple years ago when she was cut off recklessly by another student, also on a bicycle, and swerved to avoid him. End result was she wound up hitting loose gravel in a construction area, lost control, and ended up face-first into the pavement.

At university, I had a few near misses myself (as a pedestrian). I'd often park in one of the more distant lots and walk to class (one for the exercise, and two because it was nearly a two hour drive--I needed a stretch!), and the central thoroughfare was a wide, cement walkway that was mostly downhill. Most of the cyclists were cautious and traveled slowly, but there were always those (thankfully) few clowns who would race as fast as they could. I'm not sure if they were making a game of us as moving obstacles; regardless, I always kept an ear out behind me and kept far, far, far to the side near the grass!

[shopkins]

I only have anecdotal evidence, but offer the heuristic that most "drunk enough to be dangerous" bicyclists can't ride fast enough to maim anyone -- and if they're riding down a hill, they're much more likely to be maimed.

There's an inherent barrier to entry that makes drunk biking difficult enough to limit those who can actually do it. Like how often do you see someone drunk on a road bike with clips? How many drunk people bike on busy roads where they're more likely to get killed than the guy in an air conditioned hunk of metal on wheels?

A reasonable person's analysis might conclude that it's better to say, "hey, let's bike to the bar" that's 4 miles away rather than "let's drive," because statistically you're as/more likely to fall down and injure yourself as if you'd walked, and will harm society much less than if you'd decided to pilot a machine that requires a fraction of the bodily coordination to get from A to B.

[roflchoppa]

shit man, although you're correct you sound boring as hell. riding a bike around when your drunk is super fun.

[jamespo]

Or any other vehicle that swerves out of the way to avoid you and anything they hit

[lmartel]

It's too late to edit my post but let me clarify the point I was trying to make to the parent poster, who responded to "having a few beers and getting on a bike" with "driving under the influence can maim or kill people."

I'm not advocating RUI but I do not think it should be classified, legally or ethically, as a DUI. Neither is good but there's a huge difference in actual danger between the two. It's along the same lines as "public urination," which is distasteful but usually harmless in context, landing someone on the sex offender registry next to people who did much, much worse things.

[zer00eyz]

if you sit in a parked car with the engine on.. to lets say keep warm, its "intent to drive" even if you have no intent to do so.

http://illinoiscaselaw.com/dui-sleeping-in-car-illinois/ but you can find more. Whats unfortunate is people are TRYING to be responsible and still get in trouble.