I bet that dude is the head of his Home Owner's Association and measures his neighbors lawns every morning

hovsm: This "businessman" needs to stick with running that business and staying out of others. He needs a good "stick to your own business" punch in the face.

If I was in that city and bored, I'd randomly tail him and call in a speeder/drunk driver.

jabelar: Unfortunately, the only sort of grogginess that people can be charged with is drinking. But all sorts of other grogginess, such as sleepiness, painkillers, mental distraction/stress, old age, can be proven to be equally dangerous when driving. It's too bad it there isn't a test for actual impairment. I think instead of breathalyzer, the test should be some sort of reflex tester. I know the old coordination tests weren't great, but in many ways they make sense in terms of measuring true impairment. Of course then some people would not be allowed to ever drive.

the test you describe is called the police officers discretion ;p Which is the problem really. Police have fallen to an "objective" rather than "subjective" idea of impairment. Basically, if they can tick off 3 of 7 things that you are "impaired" by, they can at the very least make you get your car from the impound lot.

real shaman: karlandtanya: hydrocodone/Vicodin is strong stuff!

no.... it is the weakest prescription painkiller on the market.

I'd give that over to prescription strength Ibuprofen.

Even if we are talking about nothing but opiates, that would still go to codeine.

While I would say no one shouldn't be driving on painkillers, it really wouldn't be feasible. Half of all our old people are hooked on one opiate or another, and their grand-children aren't exactly lining up to chauffeur them around.

jabelar: I know the old coordination tests weren't great, but in many ways they make sense in terms of measuring true impairment. Of course then some people would not be allowed to ever drive.

Well, I would fail those "coordination tests" no matter what because of my condition (see above). I have almost no sense of balance. I can't, for example, stand on one leg for more than 3-4 seconds without tipping over. But it does not affect my driving at all. So the problem I would have with that is that the "coordination" they would be testing has nothing to do with the coordination and cognitive functioning required to drive safely. In normal people, it does, because normal people only lose coordination like balance when they're impaired by alcohol or something. In people like me, it doesn't correlate.

Lee451: I can hear the liberal Farkers here calling me a 'wacko" and paranoid.

Um, this liberal farker happens to agree with everything you just said.

/welcome to the dark side.

Amigajoe: -I'd really like to see a set of field sobriety tests given to a group of stone-sober people say, State legislators, and see how many fail...

My wife's entire first year law school class took field sobriety tests by a DC law enforcement officer in 1992. 400+ students involved in the middle of the day. The number of students that passed? 63.

Even the officer doing the test admitted that the test didn't matter when he administered it for people he pulled over. He was already going to make an arrest, the test was just something he had to do in order to make it legit. He also pointed out that there wasn't any way to pass the test if he didn't want you to.

It's a subjective test, and a bullshiat one at that. I'd rather have the police simply do a breath test from the get go. If you have a bad heel on your shoe you can fail a FST.

phiwings: Macular Degenerate: People are stupid about traffic stops. They blab about all their transgressions not realizing that EVERYTHING that is said is used against them, and will probably be inflated and exaggerated.

1. Answer every question to the negative
2. Volunteer no information
3. Never agree to a field sobriety test or a breathalyzer - they are highly unreliable and/or officers are trained to make people fail. Demand a blood test. If you really *are* farked up you probably deserve to get busted. But taking a stand against police erosion of privacy, even if it means a towing charge, is a small price to pay to protect your civil rights.

Most states have what's called "implied consent". driving is a privilage not a right, therefore most states mandate that if you are stopped you must submit to a brethalyzer test. if you refuse your refusal is used as grounds for a DUI arrest.
What is Implied Consent?

Arrest ≠ conviction. You can be arrested, charged, put on trial... but without that field sobriety test, breathalyzer test, etc., it's going to be hard for the state to prove intoxication.

/This is not legal advice. If you drink, don't drive. If you do and get caught, call a lawyer.

If by magic (you) were able to freeze time and examine every damn person behind the wheel... all ages, any given location @ whatever time of the day; I'm sure you would find that 5 out of 6 are considered; "under the influence"

It's whether or not you get caught, or WHEN you WILL get caught.

This woman got caught.. the other 20 or so whom rolled through that very same stop sign in the last hour did not; meanwhile doing lines on their arm-rest, smoking crack, pot, drinking a beer.

Littledogg: "I'm Italian-Irish," she says, describing her willingness to fight. "And I knew I wasn't guilty."

Well it's a good thing she isn't French-Canadian!

I suppose she got orange juice because they were all out of sea water...or another salty sea starting substance.

/When will we let these stereotypes die?

When they stop being relevant.

Bio-nic: I have Cerebral Palsy, which roughly makes me do the same thing as you. I have been stopped at DUI checkpoints before, and the one time that I could not drive away without a big mess I was asked to do a FST. After informing the officer of my condition and the fact that I would fail the test even IF he gave it to me, he threw the line "You do realize it is illegal to lie to an officer, correct?" To which I simply pulled out my medical file (I keep an abridged copy in my car just in case) and showed him the 25+ years of workup that would prevent me from being able to complete his test. I ended up wasting 3 hours at the CP waiting for confirmation from my clinic before they would let me go, but let me go they did. (At this time implied consent was not active in WI, so I skated without needing to blow)

See, this is exactly what I'm worried about. Certainly my doctors would be willing to back me up on this if the cops asked them. But I'd just rather not have the aggravation and the possibility that they might be asshats about it and force me to get a lawyer or something to get off (especially if I have been drinking moderately and they could try to claim that my 0.04 BAC or whatever constituted "impairment"). I've encountered enough stupid, belligerent cops to know that that is a possibility, medical file or no. Maybe there should be some sort of standardized way for cops to verify this kind of information quickly for people like you and me.

Has anybody else looked at the comments in TFA? From number 28:

You slept with the whole neighborhood while married. Your friend Sonia knows. We have the emails where you told her everything. Isn't that how you met your husband, while still married? There are plenty of people you cheated with that have spoken to us about it. Did you think they would keep your secret? They didn't.

You are one to talk. You were there too. He wasn't with her alone. You weren't concerned enough to have a blood test done. Why is everything awful AFTER you are supposedly done with it? You didn't mind at the time. Planned a vacation, in fact. Doesn't look a thing like him, btw. Have you seen him recently? I have. Looks just like her husband.

nashBridges: It's a subjective test, and a bullshiat one at that. I'd rather have the police simply do a breath test from the get go. If you have a bad heel on your shoe you can fail a FST.

Agreed, but I would add that breath tests also seem to rest on rather questionable science. I personally think that a blood test should be the only admissible evidence that someone is under the influence of alcohol. Is there any reason why cops can't do that?

Whatever Blows Yur Goat: If by magic (you) were able to freeze time and examine every damn person behind the wheel... all ages, any given location @ whatever time of the day; I'm sure you would find that 5 out of 6 are considered; "under the influence"

It's whether or not you get caught, or WHEN you WILL get caught.

This woman got caught.. the other 20 or so whom rolled through that very same stop sign in the last hour did not; meanwhile doing lines on their arm-rest, smoking crack, pot, drinking a beer.

Five out of six? Really? That sounds a little high. Where the hell do you live, Florida?

bubbaprog: Everyone has a right to demand a blood test, but cops sure as hell aren't going to tell you that. Again, cops are not there to ensure justice and peace, they are there to arrest you, because that is what they are paid for. They do not care one whit whether you are guilty or not -- they suffer zero consequences if you are later acquitted of a crime. They are rewarded for the number of people they book, and they will do whatever qualifies as legal to accomplish their goals.

Question: do you always have a right to demand a blood test in lieu of a breath test in the "implied consent" states? Or just additionally? Does the evidence obtained in a blood test always trump evidence from a breath test, or can the breath test still be used against you even if the blood test shows you are under the legal limit? If it's the latter, I think breath tests should be totally outlawed.

From a post on Newsvine (new window) supposedly posted by the husband:

Well, we DID have a christmas, just not the HUGE one we wanted.

The prosecutor DID THEIR JOB. They are NOT BAD PEOPLE in this particular case. They are doing what they do. Heartless as it may be, I can't say THEY did anything wrong.

It was the CHANDLER POLICE DEPARTMENT that is really to blame. When an officer gets a DUI call, that's CASH IN THE BANK, BABY. All the overtime generated from a DUI brings their salaries from the 40's to the 100k's.

This wasn't in the story-- the "witness" that called the cops on her was a guy trying to pick her up at the cafe, and when she refused him, he followed her around town until she went to the mall. He couldn't get her attention, so he devised a plan to "get even" and call the cops on her.

The police, being the morons that they are, salivated at the mouth and played along with Mr. Not-so-lucky. The pervert leading the morons, in my opinion.


Other sites refer to Steve and Deb Ceballes, owners of Horticulture West. I think old Steve will wind up losing more than $12,000 if his wife gets a lawyer with at least a pulse.

maydingle: Has anybody else looked at the comments in TFA?

Absolute mayhem in there -- I had trouble following who was who and who was accusing who of what in that comment thread.

There's a lot of biatching about the cops and the justice system in this thread (yes, a lot of, probably most, cops are arrogant power-trippy pricks, and the justice system is, as we know, ruled by the almighty dollar) but what about that farkwad Ceballes that played vigilante cop and made sure this woman got busted for what really should have been nothing?

If Ceballes is so interested in ruining people's lives, he should go sign up for police academy.

That, or join MADD.

I hope he gets falsely accused of DUI someday and experiences the lynching that he put this lady through. Maybe if he loses his landscaping business to pay legal fees for a crime he didn't commit, he'll be less likely to kiss up to the cops and help them make their DUI quotas.

EngineerAU: So, what does she do? She runs off and mixes it with a Mimosa, which contains alcohol. Impared or not, she certainly was creating a situation where she could be a danger to herself and others.

Actually, if you RTFA (I know, I know), she had only "half a mimosa" because "the orange juice irritated her mouth". She followed it with plenty of water, and only "At the very end of the meal, Wilcutt took one hydrocodone pill."

She didn't take a bunch of pills and 'mix it with a mimosa'. She had only a part of mimosa, and sometime later (at the "very end" of the meal, time enough for the waitress to bring, and her to drink, "goblet after goblet" of water), had the prescribed dose.

In the state of KS, you can refuse a field test, but you will loose your DL. Also, they cannot impound your car either. So its kind of a crap shoot. More of that, "if you've got nothing to hide" crap.

I followed a suspected drunk driver once. Called the police, and was on the phone with the dispatcher when the guy almost side swiped an oncoming car, and came to the stop in the middle of an intersection that was a 4 way stop. When the police finally found him/us (they were coming the opposite direction), the guy pulled into a driveway - the police blocked off the road- and slammed into the homeowner's garage door.

Anyways, 2 months later I get a $100 check in the mail from some anti-drunk driving group because I turned in a person that ended up getting convicted for DUI.

Now I always keep my eyes open for drunk drivers....

/I'm rich, biatch!

Couple things...
#1) the tool that called the cops in the first place needs to go threw something like what the perp (innocent woman) did...all of it..falsely accused, jailed, court costs, and not knowing what was gonna happen to him next..
#2) Farkers here that aren't concerned with this story have not had their happy azzes pulled into court for something like this YET....its coming for (statistically) 3 out of 5 of you...enjoy laughing at people until it happens to you..
#3) did exactly what some say here, didn't speak...not a word, exept "lawyer please"...cop charged me with the DUI...went to court, and this cop Lied on the report, quoting me as saying how many drinks I had, and that I said I knew I was drunk...so keeping silent is not the fail proof remedy....

FF Mac: From a post on Newsvine (new window) supposedly posted by the husband:

Wow, if true. Still, even if that's not true, I still think the guy was an asshat for calling the cops unless he actually saw her driving poorly. I'd also like to know what they meant by "running a stop sign". If it was blatantly running a 4-way stop on a busy street, yeah, that's pretty bad. If it was just not coming to a full stop at a stop sign in a parking lot, not so much. So without knowing all the details, I don't think we can truly know whether that would have looked like severely impaired driving. I could see it being a BS "fact" made up by cops to justify their charges after the fact.

YesWeHaveNoBannanas: #3) did exactly what some say here, didn't speak...not a word, exept "lawyer please"...cop charged me with the DUI...went to court, and this cop Lied on the report, quoting me as saying how many drinks I had, and that I said I knew I was drunk...so keeping silent is not the fail proof remedy....

As I said in my Boobies, I advocate the death penalty or some other extremely harsh punishment for cops that commit perjury on the stand. Corruption and lies by those in positions of authority are unforgivable offenses. And I think it's become clear that the testimony of cops on the stand has about the same credibility as that of a career criminal.

I took Vicodin before after oral surgery and it didn't impair me in the least, even when I took two at once. Nor did it do much to kill the pain. In fact, it didn't seem to do much of anything at all. I threw about 20 pills in the garbage because they seemed useless.

For those not interested in a boring story with almost no point, please skip this post.

About 3 a.m. one summer night I left my friends house in outer suburbia after a marathon D&D session fueled by Cheetos, Papa John's, and Dr. Pepper. As I'm driving by the house on the corner, I notice they're having a quite the raging party and I fondly reminisce of my care-free days in college. On the way to the "main road" I was bopping along with the windows down and the system up, as the kids say, and was making use of a street that was currently being widened in the name of urban sprawl. As it was late, and there were no construction workers standing next to their shovels, and most importantly, no speed limit signs, I keep the speedometer at a modest 40 mph.

As I approach the end of this connecting road, I notice a pair of headlights approaching with speed and conviction. How headlights can convey conviction, I don't know, but hey, this is my story and I'll tell it how I want. I make my turn on to the four-laner and begin increasing speed to the posted 55 mph when the blue lights come on and the siren does its "whooooo" thing. I drive a few more yards and pull in to a apartment complex parking area. I turn off the stereo, roll down my window, and wait.

An up-and-coming young police officer walks up to my car with his flashlight ready for action and DUI dollars in his eyes. We go through the standard dance of license and registration, which I dutifully provide after no small amount of digging in the center console. As the type who doesn't often get pulled over, my registration is always near the bottom, somewhere between my emergency napkins and that funny picture I photocopied for my sister but forgot to give her last April.

"Where you coming from?" he asks. This is kind of cop who ends a sentence in a preposition, so as you can imagine, I'm on my guard.

"A friends house," I answer nervously. Despite having nothing to be nervous about, I am. He's a cop. Not to mention he has no qualms ending his sentences with prepositions, so he might just be crazy enough to beat me silly with his oversized mag-light penis compensator.

I recall from my days of working at a law firm that specializes in DUIs that my best defense is to say as little as possible, but answer the questions politely.

"You been at a party?" says the shiny light, shine-ily shining in my ever-so-sparkly eyes. So, he's the kind of guy that also leaves out "have/had" when constructing the past perfect. I clearly got 'bad cop' this time, and my palms get moist. "No, sir," I answer.

Sure, I could blurt out the whole thing and spoil this fun game of twenty questions we've got going, but I'm not particularly good at being concise, which you may have noticed at this point, so I decide to stay calm and enjoying basking in the halo of flashlight heaven.

"What were you doing at your friend's house?" the light-bearer asks, subtly adding the corollary "drinking?" with his psionic policeman powers.

And here it is, the moment I've been waiting for. I prepare myself and hope that I'll get to enjoy the look on his face when I answer. "Uhmmm, I was playing Dungeons and Dragons," I sheepishly respond. I am triumphant! His flashlight darts frantically to the back seat, were book upon book are piled, all covered with half-naked beast warriors and impossibly hot Valkyrie-like maidens of death. My eyes adjust to the change in lighting just in time to see the utter disgust, disappointment and disapproval that is welling up inside the man in blue.

He no doubt wants to get back into position before the party-goers at the aforementioned rager that reminded my of my halcyon days decide to disperse. His face, bewildered that I'm not the drunk-driver he was looking for, and horrified to be in such close proximity to a man who knows what a d12 is used for, can hardly contain the complex emotions that he is undoubtedly dealing with.
"The-speed-limit-on-that-street-is-35-and-you-were-doing-40-be-careful-next-time ," he ejaculates. Sure, I could have used a word other than 'ejaculate' but I thought 'ejaculate' would make you more uncomfortable. Ejaculate. This guy actually does a pretty good impression of the Micro-Machines man, so I guess he can't be all bad. He tosses my paperwork at me, dashes to his cruiser and peels out of the parking lot like Bo and Luke on a gravel road with Boss Hogg coming right at them.

I smile, and just for a moment I ponder if I should multi-class next level or stay pure rogue. It would be nice having the extra fighter feats, but would it be worth delaying my sneak-attack progression?

Moral of the story: Nothing is better police repellent that total nerdom.

YesWeHaveNoBannanas: went to court, and this cop Lied on the report, quoting me as saying how many drinks I had, and that I said I knew I was drunk...so keeping silent is not the fail proof remedy....

It's not fail proof, but saying nothing is still better than talking.

If the cop lies, the cop lies. There isn't a whole lot you can do about that.

real shaman: karlandtanya: hydrocodone/Vicodin is strong stuff!

no.... it is the weakest prescription painkiller on the market.

Everyone's response to painkillers is not the same. real shaman's experience with Vicodin may well have been a "strong" one. It's a subjective matter; open to personal experince/opinion.

Your declaration, however, stated as fact, is so very innacurate it's given me a headache. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

kyuzokai: For those not interested in a boring story with almost no point, please skip this post.

Those are the best part of this kind of thread. Yours amused me.

kyuzokai:

Newsletter please.... And where do I vote for you for comment of the year?

kyuzokai: For those not interested in a boring story with almost no point, please skip this post.

This story is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

kyuzokai: Moral of the story: Nothing is better police repellent that total nerdom.

Jesus Christ, I'm all about hating cops but you, sir, are enough to bend the rules.

I wouldn't want you arrested on false charges. If there was an anti-douchebag law - I'd want you arrested for that.

Since there isn't such a law, you are a free man. That doesn't mean you should be proud of yourself.

perhaps threads like this (US) should start being labeled as police state: ... as opposed to the UK's typical nanny state: label...

Blows .02 all the time.

kyuzokai - don't multi-class. Only selected feats can be chosen as fighter bonus feats, and unless you do some serious (non-sneak) damage in battle, they probably won't help you much.

/yeah, I got the police-repellent going on too....

This is why I'm only every extremely high on ganja while driving.

Well, that, and because it improves my driving.

karlandtanya: Sounds like the cops screwed up the details.
Their mistake resulted in a person who was driving while impaired (hydrocodone/Vicodin is strong stuff!) getting off w/out a conviction.

No its not.

DUI laws should be abolished its a farking witch hunt now.

kyuzokai: For those not interested in a boring story with almost no point, please skip this post.

About 3 a.m. one summer night I left my friends house in outer suburbia after a marathon D&D session fueled by Cheetos, Papa John's, and Dr. Pepper. As I'm driving by the house on the corner, I notice they're having a quite the raging party and I fondly reminisce of my care-free days in college. On the way to the "main road" I was bopping along with the windows down and the system up, as the kids say, and was making use of a street that was currently being widened in the name of urban sprawl. As it was late, and there were no construction workers standing next to their shovels, and most importantly, no speed limit signs, I keep the speedometer at a modest 40 mph.

As I approach the end of this connecting road, I notice a pair of headlights approaching with speed and conviction. How headlights can convey conviction, I don't know, but hey, this is my story and I'll tell it how I want. I make my turn on to the four-laner and begin increasing speed to the posted 55 mph when the blue lights come on and the siren does its "whooooo" thing. I drive a few more yards and pull in to a apartment complex parking area. I turn off the stereo, roll down my window, and wait.

An up-and-coming young police officer walks up to my car with his flashlight ready for action and DUI dollars in his eyes. We go through the standard dance of license and registration, which I dutifully provide after no small amount of digging in the center console. As the type who doesn't often get pulled over, my registration is always near the bottom, somewhere between my emergency napkins and that funny picture I photocopied for my sister but forgot to give her last April.

"Where you coming from?" he asks. This is kind of cop who ends a sentence in a preposition, so as you can imagine, I'm on my guard.

"A friends house," I answer nervously. Despite having nothing to be nervous about, I am. He's a cop. Not to mention he has no qualms ending his sentences with prepositions, so he might just be crazy enough to beat me silly with his oversized mag-light penis compensator.

I recall from my days of working at a law firm that specializes in DUIs that my best defense is to say as little as possible, but answer the questions politely.

"You been at a party?" says the shiny light, shine-ily shining in my ever-so-sparkly eyes. So, he's the kind of guy that also leaves out "have/had" when constructing the past perfect. I clearly got 'bad cop' this time, and my palms get moist. "No, sir," I answer.

Sure, I could blurt out the whole thing and spoil this fun game of twenty questions we've got going, but I'm not particularly good at being concise, which you may have noticed at this point, so I decide to stay calm and enjoying basking in the halo of flashlight heaven.

"What were you doing at your friend's house?" the light-bearer asks, subtly adding the corollary "drinking?" with his psionic policeman powers.

And here it is, the moment I've been waiting for. I prepare myself and hope that I'll get to enjoy the look on his face when I answer. "Uhmmm, I was playing Dungeons and Dragons," I sheepishly respond. I am triumphant! His flashlight darts frantically to the back seat, were book upon book are piled, all covered with half-naked beast warriors and impossibly hot Valkyrie-like maidens of death. My eyes adjust to the change in lighting just in time to see the utter disgust, disappointment and disapproval that is welling up inside the man in blue.

He no doubt wants to get back into position before the party-goers at the aforementioned rager that reminded my of my halcyon days decide to disperse. His face, bewildered that I'm not the drunk-driver he was looking for, and horrified to be in such close proximity to a man who knows what a d12 is used for, can hardly contain the complex emotions that he is undoubtedly dealing with.
"The-speed-limit-on-that-street-is-35-and-you-were-doing-40-be-careful-next-time ," he ejaculates. Sure, I could have used a word other than ...


Oh my God I just shot coffee halfway across the room....

MasterShakezula

I work a regular job, which I need to drive to. I would give up my driving privileges for 5 years if it meant getting out of a DUI. It's not the penalties themselves. Anyone can drop a couple thousand dollars and spend 10 days in the clink.

It's the record that stays with you for your entire life that screws you. I know I'd lose my job if I had a DUI, my career would probably be over, I'd have a criminal record, and I'd be explaining it to every single potential employer and on every single job applications I ever submitted.

I think the comments on TFA are more telling than TFA itself. I'm glad I read them, and I'm even more convinced now that her ordeal is nothing more than a revenue maker for local police department.

WTF - Arizona toughens drunk driving laws while extending last call.

/yep, that's a big, fat 'you're doing it wrong'.

steamingpile: DUI laws should be abolished its a farking witch hunt now.

I don't agree that they should be abolished, but they should be severely overhauled. The main problem, I think, is that our system of law enforcement is now focused mostly on maximizing the number of people who are prosecuted for DUI rather than on maximizing public safety. The reason for this is simple: more "offenders" caught means more money for the government and for the interest groups like MADD that benefit financially from each drunk driver who is forced to attend "victim impact training" and such.

What we really need to do is move away from this focus on finding and convicting as many people with a BAC slightly above 0.08 as possible, and move towards focusing on the much smaller group of people who pose the largest threat to public safety. I'd rather they catch and effectively punish one person who drives regularly with a BAC of 0.2+ than 50 people who might have had an isolated incident of bad judgement one night and driven slightly over the 0.08 BAC line. Statistics show that the hardcore drunk drivers who are repeat offenders and/or alcoholics are responsible for most drunk driving accidents and even larger percentage of fatal drunk driving accidents.

stvdallas: Don't drink or do drugs, then drive. Simple, ain't it.

No, it's not simple, because the real world is not black and white. It's not a crime to drink and drive. It's only a crime to drive while sufficiently under the influence of alcohol that you're considered a danger. Also, how do you define "drinking and driving"? Is it drinking and driving if I have one beer with dinner and then drive 2 hours later?

Fact is, she was woozy, and apparently "ran into a stop sign". That means she may not have been fully in control of her vehicle.

Read it again. It didn't say she "ran into a stop sign". It said she "ran a stop sign". We don't know the facts on what the circumstances surrounding that were, and apparently that was only based on the word of the "witness", not the cops. It might have just meant she didn't fully stop at some deserted parking lot stop sign. And apparently it's been alleged that the witness was a liar.

In most states, you can refuse a field sobriety test. If they have a portable breathalyzer, if you're willing to go to the jailhouse and have blood drawn instead, you can refuse it and say you will only consent to a blood test.

Most states word their refusal law to say that refusal to submit to "chemical tests" is grounds for revoking a license. But if you are offering to subject yourself to a more invasive test for accuracy, that is different than saying you refuse all tests.

Most states also have it that you can refuse a blood test if you are willing to allow a urine or breath test. That is because a blood test is considered more of an invasion of privacy than a urine or breath test.

As for hydrocodone. It depends on how the medication effects you, how often you've taken it, etc. I've taken hydrocodone enough for various surgeries/dental problems/fractures/sprains/dislocations that I could drive if I had to while taking it, if I only took 5 mg. If I took a 10 mg pill or two of the 5 mg, I would refuse to drive. A 7.5 mg pill I usually break in half if I plan on leaving the house.

Opiate tolerant people, especially those who take opiates every day and are titrated properly to their medication, are not getting "high" off of their medication. A chronic pain patient on a Fentanyl patch would be advised not to drive until they see how it affects them, but after they'd been taking the correct dose for long enough, they likely would not be impaired.

How the law sees this, though, I don't know.

As for how the pill she took affected this woman, I have no clue. The article stated she had not had anesthesia, just numbing shots. Have no idea how many times she'd taken the meds before, or at what dose. If she'd been in pain before the surgery, she may have already been taking pain pills long enough for one not to impair her significantly.

/notice I said most states, not all
//I am not a lawyer nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn last night

all i have to say is Expect the MAX

/farking feel-good laws.

for those of you not from az.
"expect the max" PSA
Link (new window)

mxwjs: for those of you not from az.
"expect the max" PSA
Link (new window)

That's not a new window.

stvdallas: How about this.

Don't drink or do drugs, then drive. Simple, ain't it.

Fact is, she was woozy, and apparently "ran into a stop sign". That means she may not have been fully in control of her vehicle.

That being said, ANYONE that drinks and drives needs to be locked up. Plain and simple...

She ran, not ran into, a parking lot stop sign. I don't ever stop at those, you don't have to. I slow down, look both ways and yeild appropriately. This is clearly a case of trumped up charges.

I have had my own personal experience with cops and alcohol. To make a long story short. I was 20, had one drink, and had the cops called on me by the ex of the girl in my passenger seat. The cops pulled me over after the ex tried to run me off the road. A street clothes cop showed up and asked if I had been drinking. I told him yes (I don't lie) he did a field sobriety test which I passed with flying colors. Didn't make me blow. Arrested the ex for filing a false police report and reckless driving. In Texas as a minor any amount of alcohol gets you a DUI. But the guy was nice enough not to make me blow.

It's a crap shoot when you get pulled over. Some cops are power hungry dicks, some actually care.