Does this law mean "If you're going to drive drunk and kill someone, make sure it is not a rich person"?

Yep. Crash into the 1995 Toyota, not the 2022 Mercedes.

I don’t take it that way. They are trying to formalize the payments based on maintaining the same lifestyle they would have had. The approach is similar to the formula for assesing child support in a divorce.
When someone is drunk, they have no clue on who or what they are hitting.
@zenvelo I don’t find humor in a fatality.
I don’t think it will reduce anything other than the time and battles in court.

@Forever_Free That wasn’t hmor, that was just plain language explanation of the problems with the bill.

The stated intent is to not let someobody off after a couple years folowing a fatal DUI. But once again money talks, a well off person with a good insurance policy won’t care, but a poor person will be left in poverty for decades.

Tennessee has NO sense of humor when it comes to drunk driving!!! This will give you a better idea of how serious they are. I don’t think that any of this will reduce the number of drunk drivers because NO drunk driver has the wherewith all to think I might have a wreck. NO, they think I drive better when I’m drunk. Then they floorboard the gas!!!

All this law does is guarantee that when a rich kid kills the parents of a poor kid, they won’t have to pay out millions of dollars…maybe $400/month.

It’s an attempt to make the grieving family whole. But not a very good idea. Most likely the drunk will be put in jail for manslaughter so the child support won’t be paid. Once the jail time has ended, the earnings potential is still not much so it’s unlikely child support would be paid. This sounds like another poorly thought out law.

I think that it is a wake up call to drivers who choose to drink and drive of the consequences of that reckless action.
It is a warning and obviously got the media coverage desired to get that messege out into the Public.

How do you make a grieving family whole when half of the whole is no longer a part of the equation?

It’s a dictum running true to the rules of life in general. You’re always screwed if you’re poor. Nothing is more dependable. That fact is just behind death. Taxes takes only 3rd place, the rich win that one as well, and have advanced considerably faster toward defeat of (their) taxes, than the effort to defeat death. This is of course only possible through reversal of the dream that was the war on poverty.

It doesn’t target poor people; drunks generally do not choose with whom to crash. I, personally, see problems with the law though.

@zenvelo feel free to backpedal on attempt at humor. You saying to selectively crash a different vehicle is truly a twisted thought at the states attempt.

@Forever_Free I was reinforcing the same point as the original post in this thread :

“Seems like the upshot of this new law is: If you’re going to drive drunk and kill someone, make it a low income person because your child support will be lower. Sort of a strange incentive to target poor people.”

Yet you accuse me and not the OP of attempting humor about fatal incidents (I will not call a DUI an accident, there is nothing accidental happening).

Actually I was not trying to be funny at all. I was trying to understand the consequences of this rather stupid law. I think the law is destinated to fail, and it will be unevenly enforced.

I am the OP.

The “standard of living” clause is put into a lot of family court decisions. It sounds like the law is saying “if you are driving drunk and kill someone, you will accept financial responsibility for that person’s family”.

@zenvelo The OP speculated. Your post was targeted.