But you would not feel such animosity toward a driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel even if they had a previous instance of falling asleep at the wheel ?
The point is that society needs to punish when actual damage is done to other persons or property. It makes no difference why a driver was inattentive and caused the damage. Millions of other people are engaging in those same activities everyday without it causing injury or property damage. You seem ready to give up freedoms by overgeneralizing based on statistical correlations.
People are outraged whenever a drunk driver kills someone, but the truth is that millions of people drive beyond the 0.08% BAL every year and don’t have an accident, and thousands of people are killed in other accidents every year where there was no drunk driver.
The cause of the accident is inattention while driving. If you want to outlaw all distractions, then there must be no conversation while behind the wheel, no stereo system, and every vehicle ignition system must automatically blood test for any drug (such as antihistamines) that affects driving, and no stray thoughts can be allowed. Men think about sex every twenty seconds, so we definitely should never be allowed to drive, right ? Are you telling me your attention has never wandered while driving sober ?
Yes. I would feel that sort of animosity towards a driver who fell asleep like that a second time.
I once drove until I was too tired to go on, from Ft. Hood to Atlanta in one schlep. VERY Dangerous. Didn’t try it again, EVER. On the way back I took two days.
I don’t think banning all distractions is necessary. But, if an incident occurs, and they find the driver is intoxicated, texting, asleep, whatever, and is a repeat offender...