Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: cassandra and sara's daddy on March 31, 2011, 12:09:53 PM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl_QNa-bCKc
hes a small biz owner guess what he owns? a bar
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Drunk Drivers piss me off. Very little heats me up more behind the wheel then watching some jerk swerve across 3 lanes as he leaves a bar at last call.
but....
DUI laws, as currenttly written and enforced, make zero effort to actually distinguish impairment, don't actually deter/stop habitual drivers and generally do crappy things.
It's BS that you can get a DUI without actually being under the influence, or driving.
Now I don't know this guy, but if that clip is part of a larger push by him to reform DUI laws so that they actually stop impaired drivers, without unduely screwing buisnesses and unimpaired customers then that's a good idea.
He also has a point, that if you are going to allow gathering places in rural area's to serve alcohol, then people will drive there to drink.
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i beg to differ about deterrence. does it deter everyone? no but nothing is ever 100% effective. drunks are my hobby and the law has caused many to alter their driving while cocktailing habits. drink at the country bar? catch a ride home
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I worked bars for more then 10 years.
DUI laws, in my experience, deter less then 10% of the folks that are considering driving home drunk.
drink at the country bar? catch a ride home
Why? there are plenty of folks that can drink one or two drinks and are not unsafe to drive. (or at least not any more unsafe then they were to begin with)
I repeat, it's BS that you can get a DUI while being neither measureably impaired, nor driving.
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i took my first bar job in 79 and still tend bar on occasion. i was driving cab when madd first did its thing and the law has been a boon for hackers. how do you quantify your 10%? if 10% change their mind about driving drunk thats good. how about the folks who know they drink so much that they now drink at home?
there are plenty of folks that can drink one or two drinks and are not unsafe to drive. (or at least not any more unsafe then they were to begin with)
i hear that a lot. its interestingly enough part and parcel of why the new laws exist. i think folks confuse luck with skill. driving buzzed and making it home safe does NOT mean that you drive as well buzzed as sober. In my life i've had a number of close calls where i missed an accident by a split second. ingesting anything that slows my response time by a split second does not enhance the driving experience, for me or those folks forced to share the road with me. If in some perfect libertarian world i didn't share the road with others then i could buy that nonsense but i don't have the right to make a decision that endangers others. it infringes on their libertarian rights.
the usual strawman to this is that lack of sleep or a number of other things are equally problematic. yes they are. that fact does not make making a measured decision to drive buzzed ok.
i'd agree with this
it's BS that you can get a DUI while being neither measureably impaired, nor driving.
to a degree. if in fact you were not impaired. i also find the charging folks sleeping it off in their car objectionable.presuming they didn't drive drunk to where they sleep.
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The goal of DUI laws has long shifted from stopping drunk people from driving, to stopping anybody who has had any alcohol at all from driving.
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were that the case the bac limit would be 0
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were that the case the bac limit would be 0
It's headed that way.
Besides: at these low levels it's actually fairly difficult to correctly estimate BAC limits with the existing machinery. Anybody who drinks can get pegged, even if they're not at the limit - which is why there are blood tests, among other things. And why it is best not to drive if you any drinks at all.
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yup blood tests for the win but if you ask for a blood test and it hangs you you shut the door a good landshark can use to throw out the case. bad breath test is quite effective. also blood test increase the exposure of the devotee of better living through modern chemistry.
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i hear that a lot. its interestingly enough part and parcel of why the new laws exist. i think folks confuse luck with skill. driving buzzed and making it home safe does NOT mean that you drive as well buzzed as sober. In my life i've had a number of close calls where i missed an accident by a split second. ingesting anything that slows my response time by a split second does not enhance the driving experience, for me or those folks forced to share the road with me. If in some perfect libertarian world i didn't share the road with others then i could buy that nonsense but i don't have the right to make a decision that endangers others. it infringes on their libertarian rights.
I'm not confusing luck with anything. I'm stating, that there are plenty of people in this world that can drink one or two beers (drinks whatever) and have no measurable difference in their driving ability The fact that you or I have driven when we shouldn't and got lucky is a strawman in itself. Making it home lucky is not what I'm talking about.
It's beyond rediculous to say that we should be worried about "injesting anything that slows my response by a split second". A good bowl of bran cereal does that. If you aren't measurably impaired then you're not impaired. The whole idea behind BAC testswas to catch people that were'nt impaired measurably, but still had some alcohol. And it started the slide into stupidity that DUI laws have become.
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yup blood tests for the win but if you ask for a blood test and it hangs you you shut the door a good landshark can use to throw out the case. bad breath test is quite effective. also blood test increase the exposure of the devotee of better living through modern chemistry.
I worked on a DUI case with bloodwork and in researching it was frankly shocked at the procedures and the claims of 'science.'
Rather than detailing the 27 points of failure from that once case, lets just call it justice relying on the lowest bidder and the poorly trained/indifferent. And that is in NY. I shudder to think about what passes for law enforcement at some of these places I've merely read of ;)
We have laws against reckless driving. I say enforce them and just make DWI/DUI an aggravating factor enhancing the crime and penalties.
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the reckless deal might work but we'd still need some tests to make the impairment call
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IMHO the current legal scheme doesn't have the horse in front of the buggy. If driving while ability impaired, lets see some impairment, not start the investigation at driving.
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that would mean you'd have to have an "incident" the law doesn't specify having an incident while drunk is a crime it says driving at all while drunk is a crime. i pro drinker can appear sober. heck i know many a person who has driven in blackout with no incident. i was in a car that got pulled over in 79, the cop had me drive since the driver had some beer. i had 3 mixed drinks 4 shooters and 2 hits of blotter in me and seemed unimpaired to him
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the reckless deal might work but we'd still need some tests to make the impairment call
Well yes, there is that.
My understanding is that we used to have roadside tests, and we shifted away from those because of a mixture of "missing too many drunks" and not being willing to trust an officer's judgement.
Some portable version of the test I took for ADD (back in the day) seems appropriate here. It would make you watch a dot that would randomly move, then test your reaction time to noticing the thing move. Or some other way to actually test impairment. Of course then we'd have to deal with the folks that have crap reflexes stone cold sober. (maybe they shouldn't be driving?)
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some guy will claim racism or some other ism. so we are stuck with some kinda chemical analysis. things have changed much from the days when they'd just take your keys and let you sleep it off in your car
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some guy will claim racism or some other ism. so we are stuck with some kinda chemical analysis. things have changed much from the days when they'd just take your keys and let you sleep it off in your car
I disagree. We're not stuck with chemical analysis, we just stopped there. We need to come up with an imperical test of impariment. People claim racism now with breath tests, or any other traffic stop, so I don't see that as a problem.
We only stopped, because we have managed to so demonize "drunk drivers" that no one is willing to point out they might not be drunk. Case in point, one guy says they need to reform his state's DUI laws, and without knowing anything about what his idea of reform is you hold him up for ridicule. His idea might be stupid, or he might have a patent on a magical 100% accurate impairment test, but the public conversation won't ever get ther because "OMG! HEZ 4 HE DRUNKZ!!!!"
We, as a society, need to stop being ok with crappy, innacurate testing and complacent prosecutions and demand something better from our laws and courts. That, however, will never happen untill we exorcise MADD and other emotion based groups from the conversation.
I know, I know, good luck with that.
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I don't like drunk drivers any more than the next guy and we should have a reasonable law that deters folks from driving (as much as that is possible) when they have drank too much. Hysteria is driving the dui laws though, that and the money, power and make work for certain groups with ties to the criminal justice system...just like a lot of crazy laws we have.
I'm sorry I won't be able to back up this next comment. Believe it or not. I stumbled across a web site a couple years ago, and haven't been able to find it since. It had a large number of statistical stuff having to do with alcohol and driving. One of the most surprising was that the mid 90% of all auto accidents in which injury and/or death occur, the BAC was in excess of .15, and high percentage were repeat offenders. So we have draconian laws that screw people up at a mere .08 and as low as .06 as well as require one to pay huge sums for counseling, forced AA, huge fines, large lawyer fees, 5 years of increased insurance premiums, forcing license revocation policies that are a nightmare to rectify not to mention the huge cost of that as well as having folks consider lying about their lifestyle concerning having a drink now and then, for a low bac and a first offense.
License suspension or revocation for a first offense is stupid and borders on being criminal. Please don't use the platitude that one should have thought about that before one drank. .06 to .08 is dinner and a couple of large glasses of wine. People have to drive in order to provide for themselves or family. So folks drive anyway with a suspension and a burned out license plate light starts the horror all over again. In my county, deputies and state troopers and city police park near restaurants and bars after 10PM and pull folks over arbitrarily, for NO reason other than there is a good chance the driver has been drinking because they came out of the bar or restaurant. Try and get the judge to believe it was in illegal stop. I know this happens because friends as well as myself have been pulled over, only for the officer to find that we weren't drinking at all and we both knew the stop was illegal. Convince a judge, though. MADD rewards cops who lock up drinkers. I'm not cop bashing, I was one for 7 years. Like everything else in life, some folks with badges stretch things, and bad or illegal enforcement becomes an everyday thing.
First offense dui under .15 should consist of a heavy fine on a sliding scale down, and a license restriction to work, school, medical reasons for 90 days and have the restriction removed automatically by paying a reasonable fee.
Again, I don't like drunk drivers and there should be some reasonable enforcement to encourage compliance.
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In my life i've had a number of close calls where i missed an accident by a split second.
Me, too - while sober. :O
How about a law against certain colors of cars? ;/
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Me, too - while sober. shocked
in my view there exists a strong chance were i impaired i would not have missed. deliberately chosing to loweer my ability to perform a task that can fatally affect my fellow citizens should have consequences
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Representative Hale: "These taverns and bars are the centers of these communities."
Maybe that's the problem?
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if we owned a bar or tavern we might see it that way
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Representative Hale: "These taverns and bars are the centers of these communities."
Maybe that's the problem?
Ever lived in a small town?
I've been to several where the community center was either the church or the store/bar/diner. And churches close early.
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Let me add however:
That might be a problem. I don't actually know the specifics of either the town the Representative lives in or the what exactly his problem is with the law as it currently is. I just felt the need to point out that to a large extent he's right. The current DUI laws need to be changed. How that change happens needs to be a subject of dicussion.
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http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/31/montana-rep-alan-hale-says-dui-laws-are-destroying-a-way-of-li/
hales not reachable for more insight
hes opposed to legislation designed to crack down on repeat offenders
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were that the case the bac limit would be 0
Just give it time.
That's why MADD lobbied to push it down from .10 to .08, and there's lots of noise about .06 and .05...
MADD went from the understandable outrage over dead kids/innocents, and making laws/punishments actually fit some semblance of the damage done, to the new face of the temperance movement.
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The goal of DUI laws has long shifted from stopping drunk people from driving, to stopping anybody who has had any alcohol at all from driving.
That is MADD's motive. And, apparently CSD's.
Lord save the solid citizens from hysterics and the zeal of converts.
Representative Hale: "These taverns and bars are the centers of these communities."
Maybe that's the problem?
Maybe the problem is that you haven't spent enough time in small town taverns to know what goes on inside them?
in my view there exists a strong chance were i impaired i would not have missed. deliberately chosing to loweer my ability to perform a task that can fatally affect my fellow citizens should have consequences
Make sure you leave your kids at home or only take them places in a horse-drawn conveyance, then, because most any kids in a back seat will impair a driver more than 0.08BAC. Unless you made sure the kiddos had a beer, too.
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Maybe the problem is that you haven't spent enough time in small town taverns to know what goes on inside them?
I wouldn't call that problem, but no, I haven't. Thus I phrased that as an interrogative. It still seems like a good question, though.
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http://www.rochester.edu/uhs/healthtopics/Alcohol/bac.html
http://www.intox.com/t-Physiology.aspx
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/808-893.PDF
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18023634
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Representative Hale: "These taverns and bars are the centers of these communities."
Maybe that's the problem?
The definition of a town in Montana is a bar and a post office.
The post office is optional. ;)
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I gotta better reason then most to hate drunk drivers.
IMO dui laws are much like many other (behavior control) laws. Ineffective at actually preventing the behavior from occuring in the first place and only dealing with conseqence after the fact.
What I'd like to see is a big heavy hammer of the law getting dropped hard. People wanna drink n drive AND CAUSE INJURY then they should have their life destroyed or at least mangled.
Example: drunk crashes and kills some kids dad, that drunk should loose EVERYTHING possibly including their life. Might convince more people that the cost of drunk driving isn't something they can afford.
I have no pity or tolerence to thoughtless people that cause injury to others. Worth about as much as dog**** on the bottom of my shoe, IMO.
For those caught driving drunk without causing injury then I think their car should be taken and auctioned off on the first offense. Second offense choptheir friggen legs off.
And those that say "well she's only 100 pounds and only had two drinks"... Tough titty. You drank and then chose to drive. 1 beer or 10 isn't gonna make a difference if you destroy somebodys family.
Drinking booze away from home isn't a requirement for anybody no matter what. But not having a steering wheel embedded in their chest is required for all the other people on the road.
When I see drunks on the road I call 911 and follow till the cops show. Then as I drive away I wish the worst outcome possible on the drunk driver.
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In Minnesota if you call a taxi, wait for it to show up, and then go into your car to get your things the police will (and have in the past) arrest you for drunk driving. You literally need a sober person to get your things out of your car for you. The state police even openly defend that interpretation of the law due to the opportunity to drive impaired.
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In Minnesota if you call a taxi, wait for it to show up, and then go into your car to get your things the police will (and have in the past) arrest you for drunk driving. You literally need a sober person to get your things out of your car for you. The state police even openly defend that interpretation of the law due to the opportunity to drive impaired.
Maybe we ought to treat the LEOs who take such actions and positions as murderous thugs, as they have the opportunity to do so?
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In Minnesota if you call a taxi, wait for it to show up, and then go into your car to get your things the police will (and have in the past) arrest you for drunk driving. You literally need a sober person to get your things out of your car for you. The state police even openly defend that interpretation of the law due to the opportunity to drive impaired.
source? of the non infowars variety if posible
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source? of the non infowars variety if posible
I'm too lazy to compile sources right now, but that is indeed the way it works in most states. If you have any form of control over your vehicle, even on private property, you can be charged with DUI.
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this was the unsubstantiated claim bold added by me. a single source of that claim in real life? not my best friends cousins brother says variety
"if you call a taxi, wait for it to show up, and then go into your car to get your things the police will (and have in the past) arrest you for drunk driving. "
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this was the unsubstantiated claim bold added by me. a single source of that claim in real life? not my best friends cousins brother says variety
"if you call a taxi, wait for it to show up, and then go into your car to get your things the police will (and have in the past) arrest you for drunk driving. "
While I was in grad school (1995), I worked as an intern for the office managing work release cases for the Harnett County Circuit Courts (rural NC). With that "job", I spent several hours a week in court. I frequently saw situation as described by DustinD. Even better, the cops frequently admitted the accused wasn't driving and probably had no intent to drive.
Wanna call me a liar like you do so many others here? Oh, I get it, you don't call people liars, you just insinuate they are lying.
Chris
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you saw cases where someone called a taxi and when the taxi showed up arrested the guy who called the cab? or cases where the arrested claimed that? or their lawyers claimed that?
the accused wasn't driving and probably had no intent to drive.
that will get you popped if you have the keys and could drive you are smoked. the drill is leave the keys where cops can't find em. that limits you to drunk in public. or will limit the conviction when it goes to court. they can try any charge
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you folks do know what the law hes against was about right? repeat dui offenders?
you'd hate the "interdiction " ordinances then.
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I don't recall any cases where they were waiting on a taxi per se, but this being rural NC, taxis were not a common occurrence. However, people did get popped and convicted for sitting in cars or opening car doors to retrieve some random item without the keys ever entering the ignition switch.
Chris
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keys only have to be on your person been that way since the 80's know a 54 year old man got 10 years for sleeping in his car behind the bar he got drunk in. he got out in 6
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keys only have to be on your person been that way since the 80's know a 54 year old man got 10 years for sleeping in his car behind the bar he got drunk in. he got out in 6
Why do you think this is OK?
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Why do you think this is OK?
The zeal of the convert.
The revenge of the reformed on those who never had strayed.
As he used to act in a dangerously irresponsible manner with ethyl alcohol, those of us who never were sloppy drunks must have our liberties curtailed and submit to an asinine legal regimen. "Hey, <insert thuggish tactic> has been done since <insert decade> and the guy should have known better than to think that acting in a reasonable manner was enough to keep him from being arrested."
Drunks are less danger to liberty than the MADD hysterics and some reformed drunks, sure enough.
I wonder, do all these 0.08BAC hard liners never drive with their children, due to their impaired function when their kids are in their autos?
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Why do you think this is OK?
it was his 10th dui he'd killed 2 people so far
that we know of
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The zeal of the convert.
The revenge of the reformed on those who never had strayed.
As he used to act in a dangerously irresponsible manner with ethyl alcohol, those of us who never were sloppy drunks must have our liberties curtailed and submit to an asinine legal regimen. "Hey, <insert thuggish tactic> has been done since <insert decade> and the guy should have known better than to think that acting in a reasonable manner was enough to keep him from being arrested."
Drunks are less danger to liberty than the MADD hysterics and some reformed drunks, sure enough.
I wonder, do all these 0.08BAC hard liners never drive with their children, due to their impaired function when their kids are in their autos?
io have no problem with folks drinking more power to em heck i still tend bar driving? i have problems with. you know some of the worst? the ones just a lil buzzed . they get i trouble thinking they are fine. the regular drunk knows hes bombed and drives slower is scared
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it was his 10th dui he'd killed 2 people so far
that we know of
Then lock him up for killing two people, not for sleeping in his car.
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he'd been locked up for the 2 separate killings did a dime on the second one. he was a drunk and he liked his car. he got what he deserved heck even he thought so after a while. he was only out 3 months wasn't supposed to drink at all
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keys only have to be on your person been that way since the 80's know a 54 year old man got 10 years for sleeping in his car behind the bar he got drunk in. he got out in 6
And that is frakking medical-grade-pure bovine excrement. :mad: [ar15] [ar15] [ar15]
Getting DUI for ***NOT*** driving?
W.
T
F?!?!?
The *ONLY* thing that does is encourage people to GO AHEAD AND PUT THE KEYS IN THE IGNITION AND TRY TO MAKE IT HOME!
What the hell are they actually trying to do here?
it was his 10th dui he'd killed 2 people so far
that we know of
And he should pay for those crimes. Should have been locked up for a long time, and lost his license for longer, after his first actual DUI. There's not one person out there on the road who doesn't know that drunk driving - even "buzzed" driving - is both illegal and dangerous. Enforce the law, and put teeth in it early so that there IS no later.
He should *NOT* pay for REFUSING to commit a crime!
Sleeping it off behind the bar in his own car is... loitering, maybe. If it's posted, anyways. Ask the property owner.
Some of your attitudes mystify me, C&SD.
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sleeping it off in his own car with the keys on him gets him the ride. in his case drinking at all gets him the ride. and he was well aware of that when he went out. play stupid games win stupid prizes. play em 10 times, 10 convictions, you get the bonus prize. you had to really try to get 10 convictions back then.
shoot look whats coming
http://www.andrewflusche.com/blog/fredericksburg-sliding-down-a-slippery-alcohol-slope/
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So, this begs the question, why do you believe it's okay to arrest someone with no prior DUIs for having the gall to possess keys to their own property?
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When I used to deliver pizza, I would get pulled over constantly just because driving home at 2am is probable cause for being drunk. I heard so many lame excuses about how I was swerving over the line or my taillights weren't working; it really had an impact on my view of law enforcement and the DUI thing. I started leaving my pizza sign on for the trips home and just left it in the truck. It came in handy sometimes when I was off duty and needed to park somewhere illegally for just a couple minutes anyway.
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So, this begs the question, why do you believe it's okay to arrest someone with no prior DUIs for having the gall to possess keys to their own property?
it does more than beg a question. how about you point out where i said that? be careful not to hurt yourself stretching
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it does more than beg a question. how about you point out where i said that? be careful not to hurt yourself stretching
;/ Try the whole thread.
FWIW, folks, question-begging is this right here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question).
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"if you call a taxi, wait for it to show up, and then go into your car to get your things the police will (and have in the past) arrest you for drunk driving. " I either heard that from the driving instructor at the behind the wheel class I took when I got my license about ten years ago, or from a police officer they brought in to talk to us during that class.
My interwebs searching seems to indicate that "Most states have determined that all that is necessary to be guilty of their driving while intoxicated or driving under the influence statutes is that the vehicle be in your control, moving or not, running or not. So parked with you in the drivers seat is "operation.""
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-497814.html seems to have a few antidotes along those lines.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/21789609/detail.html Arrested while waiting for a cab, but the arrest was for public intoxication. They were outside the bar and took a cab to the bar. "A Montgomery County prosecutor said if you call a taxi after drinking alcohol, you are typically better off waiting inside the establishment instead of in the parking lot."
http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11400&page=1 Also says the same thing, you just have to be in control of the car, not trying to drive it.
I also found a few incidents were people listening to the car's radio in their driveway with the engine off were arrested for drunk driving, even though the situation strongly indicated they had no intention to drive.
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I also found a few incidents were people listening to the car's radio in their driveway with the engine off were arrested for drunk driving, even though the situation strongly indicated they had no intention to drive.
could you share those?
i went to this
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-497814.html
and found nothing even close to supporting your earlier claim anecdotal or otherwise
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None of these are the same examples I found while looking up the taxi cab case.
http://www.snopes.com/crime/cops/garage.asp Just for fun, a police officer follows a man suspected of driving drunk, the man happens to pull into the officer's garage and claims it is his own home.
http://tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=125980 DUI upheld for man sleeping in his car in his driveway. The car was not able to start, the keys were not in the ignition. The engine was cold. The car door was open. He did have prior arrests.
http://autos.aol.com/article/dui-car-wouldnt-start/ here is another article about the same incident.
http://forums.officer.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-139631.html Many of the police there say they can arrest people if they have the keys to their car while in their car. It seems to depend on the state. Most officers also state they would use discretion.
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gonna have to do better than that second link
"The keys were in the center console, not the ignition. Fleck admitted to having consumed around a dozen beers that night. Officers at the scene arrested him, and his blood alcohol level was found to be .18. A few weeks after Fleck's vehicle was impounded, a police officer tested the vehicle using the keys found in the car's center console.
"Although the key turned in the ignition, the vehicle would not start," Justice Alan C. Page explained in the unanimous decision"
i've been "involved" with hundreds of dui's in the last 30 years was just on the phone with a guy a few mins ago. i see the system abused alright by the drunks, not the other way around
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hmmmmm
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/199030/group/homepage/