Posted on 03/08/2006 6:12:23 AM PST by Enterprise
"Fresno police are taking enforcement of drunken driving laws to a new level — which officers expect will bring both success and outrage. Saturday night, the traffic unit unveiled a new operation in which plainclothes police officers stake out bars and target drunk patrons. If the heavy drinkers get behind the wheel, officers in unmarked cars follow them and call in marked police cars to pull them over."
(Excerpt) Read more at fresnobee.com ...
Thanks. Apparently he was pushing the limits to get a notch on his belt, just as I suspected.
Another story. A friend of mine was stopped and arrested. Two HP cars on the scene. The female passenger in the car was told she couldn't drive the car home unless she submitted to a breathalizer test. She said ok, and as the patrolman went to get the unit, the other one said 'forget it, it isn't working'. This was the unit used to arrest the driver. He later blew at the station and was released without formal charges, other than improper equipment (tail light).
"The risk of an overzealous cop and prosecutor may make it unsafe to even have anything stronger than a Dr. Pepper with a meal."
And then MADD and the zero-tolerance folks will have achieved their goal of scaring us all out of driving with even one bit of alcohol in their system. One step closer to bringing back prohibition, which is the unstated goal of at least some of them.
I can safely say you pose a greater public threat behind a voting machine dead sober than I do behind the wheel at .08.
What it is, is a statement of fact. If noone would drive after drinking noone would die as a result of it. What I said had nothing to do with tolerating it or not.
Other posts in this thread speak about my position on tolerance of it. Below .08 is to be tolerated as part of the comprimise. Above it should not.
What is your comprimise and how do you come to it? I have explained my position. Can you explain yours?
You can find it hard to believe all you want to. That is your problem. I back .08 100% and want it to stay there for reasons I have posted.....You can search some other threads I have posted on and I say the very same things there that I do here. Belive it, its the truth.
I would refuse a .05. How many times must I say such a thing?
The fact that more people are caught driving at a higher level than .08 (say .16) is not related in anyway to how dangerous they are. Studies show that significant impairment begins at .08 and I think the studies are the most valid thing we have to go on.
Just because you feel like you aren't impaired doesn't mean you are not.
I do not know anyone that got into DUI school only being a three beer drinker. I think that is a strawman argument used to spin the issue to something that it isn't.
How many people that are stopped actually had three beers? Cmon now.
Your apology is accepted. My brother-in-law is a pathetic and vile drunkard and the very reason that DUI/DWI laws exist. No matter whether he has just knocked back two drinks or is literally driving blind, he is an absolute menace on the streets.
~ Blue Jays ~
DUIs make lots of money for local govts, just like speed traps. That's all you need to know. In this town, drivers blabbering on cell phones while they blow through stop signs are a much bigger dandeg than drunk drivers, but there's no money in it, so the cops don't care.
.08 is acceptable to me for reasons I have stated.
You say .10 is where you want it to be. Studies of states that went to .08 show that in combination with other ventures in kind, the numbers are going down, This shows .08 is proper. If it wasn't then there would be no drop at all. It isn't like noone heard of DUI before it went to .08 right?
Take that up with those states. I would stand right beside you in opposing such a thing.
I'm a member of DAMM: Drunks Against Mad Mothers. ;-)
I know a few fellas like that....they really get cranky when they get too much blood in their alcohol system.
No, what gets old is your lack of real-life experience. Go file a complaint against a cop?
The first thing the Internal Affairs officer is likely to tell you is the liklihood the officer can file a lawsuit against you if you fail to prove your case which the department has no intention of helping you prove, in about 90 percent of cases.
You are not describing real-life situations, just things you imagine in your mind.
No one here is advocating drunk driving. They are protesting the needless drop to .08 that holds the potential for making criminals out of people who are not criminals.
We are against your nanny-stater lower drinking limits, smoking bans, and attacks on the First, Second, Fourth, Sixth and 10th Amendments that we are watching happen to our country.
Let freedom ring, again, in America.
Also, you're not the first person I've said this to on this site: Real conservatives don't petition the government to control other people's behaviors.
How'd you stumble on this site?
"I do not support .02 and I do not support moving it from .08."
Glad to hear it. The question is, is it a good use of police resources, not to mention good policy in a supposedly free country with an assumption of innocence, to set up stings and road blocks to just look for people whose BAC is over .08 but have not shown any deficiency in their driving ability? I say no. If a cop observes a driver driving erratically, pulls them over, and administers a breathalyzer (with an approved, accurate, calibrated machine, which often is not the case) and they blow over .08, I say go ahead and arrest them and charge them. Then we come to the discussion of how strong the punishment should be for a first time conviction of a driver that blows just over the limit. I believe current laws, at least the ones in Canada that I am familiar with, are overly harsh.
Get glasses or reading lessons. Or, quit your drinking. I said in the prior post that the guy that caused the accident wasn't drinking. The front-seat passenger in the struck car was drinking. The driver of the struck car wasn't drinking.
This death would be included in "alcohol-related" crash statistics.
Yes, it is very possible, in fact, common, for the drinker to be not responsible for an "alcohol-related" crash.
What about the driver who is .09 and is sitting stopped at a red light when he gets t-boned by a cop chasing a stolen car?
Not responsible for the accident, couldn't get out of the way of the careening cop car, but still dead and still a stat.
There's two cases that smash your theory. And, they are not uncommon.
Most police are good folks and seek to do right. Obviously there is no perfection here and some cops are bad. There is no way to hamstring police to the point that they cannot do bad things just as it is imposible to hamstring people to the point they do no wrong.
Point is that choices have consequences. If a cop makes a poor choice, bust em. I hold people and cops ( which are people too) to the very same standard.
Field tests are worthless all by themselves. It takes a field test to draw a blow, at least here. I think that is a good example of checks on power and I approve of both tools being used together.
Refusing is a choice. All choices have consequences. If you are within the legal limit then you have nothing to worry about. If you are not in that legal limit then take what you have coming. After all it was your choice that got you there. Blaming the cop for your own BAC level is hardly a winning argument.
You have a constitutional right to chose not to blow. You do not have a constitutional right to drive. If you refuse to follow the rules set forth for driving then do not complain if that ability is not afforded to you.
There is no damage to your rights becasue driving is not a right. It doesn't take 500 words to spell that out. If you do not agree with the rules of driving then by all means absolve yourself from the situation, then you will never feel alienated when asked to blow.
IS requiring a license damaging to the constitution? Is requiring your age be 16? Is requiring insurance? Is requiring you to be a citizen? Is passing a written test or a behind the wheel test? your anti constitution argument doesn't hold up to this scrutiny.
In order that you may drive legally there are certain requirments that you must meet. Agreeing to blow when asked is one of them. They cannot force you to blow but they can punish that choice by taking away your license based on the area of not following the rules set to allow you to qualify to do so legally.
If the blowing thing is anti consititutional then so is age...heck so then would be requiring you to show your age or your ID to begin with. That just doesn't pass the common sense test imho.
I've always wondered something: If it's against the law to drink and drive, why do bars have parking lots?
With the new, tougher, BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) Laws in most states now, I guarantee you that most people who drive away from a bar are "legally" drunk.
In some jurisdictions, like the District of Columbia, it's the officer's discretion to to arrest for DUI regardless of the BAC as long as it is above 0.
Brer Rabbit at least, sounded sincere.
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