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”.
will it turn into a chinese model where the driver is now looking to run over the kids too?
There is that risk. However, they would have to stop, get out, get the victims wallet, find out where they live, drive there, and murder all the children.
I think the risk of that is pretty low, all considering
The majority of posts here say this is a bad law and appear to be more sympathetic to the drink driver than the victim. I suspect because the law makers are on the incorrect team
It’s good they’re trying something.
It’s bad in that it won’t have the stated effect of supporting the child. Personally, I suspect it has more to do with mireing the perp in more debt… which, they can then keep them in prison for longer. (Which is not about justice or helping people.)
This’ll never stand. What’ll be next? The price for dui is already too high and the person likely to do this won’t have the money to facilitate it anyway or even further financially ruining people. We may not like druck drivers but this is too much. If the State wants to help victims of drunk drives, then get a fund going that will help them. More punishment is not the answer
I don’t understand how in your eyes a drunk driver is a victim somehow. it’s the easiest thing to avoid doing. Out of all situations it’s entirely preventable. If you don’t think it is so it’s time to go find yourself a 12 program. Cuz your life is unmanageable if you’re measuring on taking a life with a death machine. Step 1. Do that at the very least before deciding on actions that may lead to killin a person.
I don’t get drunk driving. Uber is cheaper than a DUI. So is being drunk in public.
It’s a bit more than just an uber though. It’s also an uber back to the bar in the morning to collect your car, but the City doesn’t allow overnight parking so they towed your car, and now you have to pay a couple hundred to get it released from the tow company. If they really want to curb drunk driving, then reduce the barrier to not driving home. Stop towing cars at night and don’t cite people for sleeping one off in their car.
Not getting caught is cheaper than an Uber. Nobody expects to get caught, that’s why they do it.
Even if you think ride shares are cheap, they aren’t cheap enough. We need public transit level cheap, but has to feel safe for everyone, at night. This is one of the better use cases for self driving cars.
How about just make financial penalties for traffic violation/vehicular homicide be based upon salary/net worth like Europe?
