Exact same thing happened to my brother, my dad, five of my cousins, my uncle and my grandmother.

My mom and my brother were broadsided at 60 MPH by a six time repeating drunk driver. She was in critical care for two months and in rehab for three years. She still lives in pain and is missing a few of her vertebrae. My brother broke his leg and tore up his knee. He had to have reconstructive surgery. . .

I feel no sympathy for this farker. If you're drunk, don't get in a car. Truth is most of the time drunk drivers get a slap on the wrist when they get caught, so to hell with this one guy who got shafted.

I've gotten a DUI while alongside the road with a Jeep while holding its drive train in my hand (namely Jeep just broke & couldn't be driven if it had to have been). Got dropped but that was after almost $1K, with lawyer & towing & impound.
Advise: hide the keys, get in the back seat.

I once prosecuted a DUI case where the defendant passed out at a traffic light. He was out cold, car in Park, twelve empty Bud cans in the back seat. According to weemill he should be applauded for his civic responsibility.

Remote starters are illegal in some states. Also illegal in manual transmission vehilces I believe. Memory may be faulty due to advanced age though. Check local laws.

A buddy of mine made the same wise decision like this. Pulled over his car and took a nap at a Giant Eagle parking lot at 4 am. An hour later the cops dragged him out of the car and cuffed him and threw him in the holding cell. He was charged with 'obstruction of business practices' or something else just as villanous. Also of note - it was memorial day weekend. Only a couple hours left to fill them quotas, coppers!

Kaeishiwaza : well, most people hit by drunk drivers get away with minor brusies, som im glad your family was cripples, it paves the way for harsher laws.

BTW by the time they got me to the station my BAC was under the legal limit but I still needed a lawyer to fight it.

Damn, i need some more sleep

LeftyLiebowitz

Yes, drinking with indians is illegal. Those hatchets there arn't just for scalping the hair off your head to wear as a decrative white man hat. But they rip through a case of Budweiser faster than you can say tatanka.(sp?)

"Driving" is typically defined in the statute to be something on the order of "in actual physical control" of the vehicle. How that is interpreted can vary, but I would guess that the vast majority of states would interpret it to include being in the car, with the keys.

come on, the guy says he had 4 beers and you believe it? I know if I ever get pulled Im damn sure gonna only have had "4 beers"; probably only 2 (and I didnt finish the second one, ociffer). I sympathize with his problem cause he had a real shiathead cop, but my guess is this guy had more like 14 beers, and pulled over only when he 1)couldnt keep his eyes open, or 2)couldnt keep it in the road for more than 50 feet. Dont give me that shiat about how the alchohol hadnt taken effect 'til he was on the road; anybody whos been drinking longer than 2 weeks knows to watch out for that. I give him points for being smart enough to pull over and sleep it off, but he farked up in a bigger way when he decided to get on the road to begin with.

I guess he rock and rolled at night and partied to much everyday

He drove there drunk. Therefor, he's DWI. And an asshat to boot.

swettling
D.W.I.

DRIVING while intoxicated.

Don't you have to be driving to qualify?

Again, RTFA.

He was driving and he admitted to it.

HappyDaddy if you go by "in actual physical control" of the vehicle" what about someone that passes out at the wheel?

HappyDaddy, you don't see any difference between intentionally parking your car, and falling asleep at a red light?

You are why nobody respects the law in this country.

2003-09-29 11:52:14 AM HappyDaddy


I once prosecuted a DUI case where the defendant passed out at a traffic light. He was out cold, car in Park, twelve empty Bud cans in the back seat. According to weemill he should be applauded for his civic responsibility.

No, i think you're not getting me here. I'm not arguing for/against this guy, in particular, but I AM arguing against the legality of these particular sets of laws.

I only had a few, but the dog, he had alot.

/dog burps, man falls outta car

Sheesh, this is news? The late civil rights activist Hosea Williams did the passed-out-in-a-parked-car-with-the-motor-running trick several times in the early 1980s!

2003-09-29 11:52:14 AM HappyDaddy


I once prosecuted a DUI case where the defendant passed out at a traffic light. He was out cold, car in Park, twelve empty Bud cans in the back seat. According to weemill he should be applauded for his civic responsibility.

Also, you're a lawyer, you should know the difference between deciding not to drive drunk and passing out at a red light. To say you're intelligent, you have a penchant for being dense.

Even if the engine is running, he could've just been listening to the radio, trying to keep warm. The car was in 'park,' so he wasn't driving. If the car was in drive or reverse, even, i'd have a different perspective. This type of legislation is stupid, imho.


this happened to me. I'd been drinking,was loaded, and parked outside a bar. The Bulls-Jazz game was still on when I left (98 NBA finals), so I went to listen to the end of the game in the car.

Cop comes up, says "what do you think you're doing?"

i said "listening to the basketball game."

"Have you had anything to drink tonight?"

"Yes."

"And you were going to drive?"

"Hell no - I'm plastered. I wanted to hear the end of the game."

"So why are the keys in the ignition?"

"Because it's the only way to work the radio!"

He gave the whoel speech about "care and control of the vehicle", meaning, essentially, if you're too drunk to drive, you may also be too drunk to keep it in park and avoid rolling down a hill or hiting the gas by mistake.

He made me give him my license, but I got to keep the keys, and had to pick up the license in the morning.

"I feel no sympathy for this farker. If you're drunk, don't get in a car. Truth is most of the time drunk drivers get a slap on the wrist when they get caught, so to hell with this one guy who got shafted."

My best friend was killed by a drunk driver (repeat, 10 offenses, etc.) and I think this was a dumb arrest. Someone sleeping in a parking lot is not a problem.

So there's room for a variance in opinions, I guess.

1. Get membership to AAA

2. Use your card to have your car towed home and you get a free ride

there is an organization around here that you can call if you're drunk and they'll tow you and your car home for free. Though they do ask for donations.

This guy was an ass for driving after drinking. However the fact that you can be in your car in say the bar parking lot not driving and get a dui is just wrong.

woah i just did that this weekend

DeanMoriarty nice cop, you got lucky.

Drunk driving laws have, sadly, evolved to a point where they are all about DWI convictions and have nothing to do with getting drunk drivers off the road.

Why don't they just claim that his car is a weapon of mass destruction while their at it.

Why do bars have parking lots, anyway?

I got no sympathy fopr the guy. While he was not driving at the time the cop busted him, he did drive drunk to get to that strip mall. Busted. The cops were just late. But he still was driving drunk. No sympathy.

The point which makes it asnine is that he TRIED to do the right thing. Reading this article and the comments posted, I can conclude two things:

1. If I drive home while drunk, I MIGHT get a DUI/DWI.
2. If I pull over to sleep it off because I know I'm drunk, I WILL get a DUI/DWI (unless I hide my keys).

Knowing that, which course of action do you think I'd take? Any DUI/DWI convictions that happened because the accused pulled over and tried to sleep it off, thus NOT killing anyone that night.

Friends don't let friends sleep.

i think both sides have compelling arguments, and that's probably why states themselves are divided. but if you're in the wrong state (mine in this case) it seems there is legal basis for the ticket/arrest.

More importantly, what causes drunks to get the urge to drive? I'm a total drunk but never, ever, get the urge to hop in the car and drive home. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that most of my drinking is done in the privacy of my own home.

karlmer so the city won't tow your car if you leave it parked overnight. So people will actually show up to drink, rather than going to a competitors. Because many bars have people who come in to shoot pool/watch football/eat rather than get too drunk to drive.

By this twisted logic, if you are in your driveway working on your car, have a few beers while doing so, get done and start your car to make sure it runs, you are DUI.

I'm all for the death penalty for idiots that hog the passing lane.

I knew that you could get busted if you have your key in the ignition (this law has been around for a long time) so after getting wrecked on Cinco de Mayo, I threw the keys under the car, and hopped in the back seat and slept it off. When I came to, I was sober, grabbed the keys from under the car and went safely home on the Sixo the Mayo. Piece of cake!... or taquitos, in that case. Please, conrol your accolades.

This is so stupid. Sooooo stupid.

Millions of Americans have guns in their homes. Are we charging them for murder? How about attempted murder? I'm sure the guns are readily accesible.

Asinine. Asshole cop. Stupid law. Dumb arrest.

/grandfather killed by drunk driver

Good lesson learned here.

I had a friend who was driving drunk when he was run over and killed by a sober person.

weemill

You are apparently witless. I am not.

Sidi, I'm guessing that they are used mainly to insure that your car will be handy when you're done drinking and ready to drive home. All the uses you've mentioned, put together, don't make add up to the number of people driving home drunk.

And many people THINK they're not too drunk to drive home. And they might be right, but the law probably disagrees.

gromky: "It would certainly weaken the drunk driving laws that we are trying to improve." --MADD spokeswoman

Well, there's the truth. The leftist advocacy organization isn't interested in ameliorating the problem they're ostensibly organized to oppose, they're more interested in passing laws. New, restrictive, oppressive laws. Wonderful.

Agreed. Although I don't know if you can really call MADD "liberal" or "conservative," it's clear that the organization has gone well beyond its once laudable objective of informing the public of the dangers of drunk driving. What has happened since then is that MADD has had to continue to pursue a teetotaler's agenda to justify its existence.

Confidential to MADD: the war's over and it's time to go home. Drunk driving is illegal and everyone knows (or has the opportunity to know) it's a bad/dangerous thing to do.

More evidence that shows groups like MADD aren't simply concerned with keeping the roads safe lies in the effort to reduce the legal limit to .08 in all states while not crusading against cell phone use while driving. The .08 limit isn't going to make the roads any safer, it's just going to get sober people in trouble. In the meantime, real dangers in the form of people who talk on their phones and drive, soccer moms who fight with their kids while driving and legally blind elderly drivers are completely overlooked by groups like MADD...So it's my belief that MADD is less about making the roads safer and more about making life difficult for those who choose to drink.

LordBger That would be a great call...Umm, hello officer I'm drunk and I'm in my car should I leave the keys in my pocket, the ignition, or should I just sleep in the trunk

2003-09-29 12:10:14 PM HappyDaddy

weemill

You are apparently witless. I am not.

Please explain. I'd love to hear this one.

Nice NSFW ad for Karmawhatever --------------->

It's not asinine. The idea is that if the person sleeps for too short of a time and still wakes up drunk, though less drunk, he may feel he is okay to drive when he isn't. In my state, if you are in the front seat w/the keys in your pocket, it is intent to drive and equated w/driving. If you sleep it off in the back seat, you're cool.
I lost a cousin to a drunk driver. When he died, so did every child he might have had. His potential descendants died with him. His mother was never the same.
DWI sucks. It devastates lives. If you drink and drive, you deserve what you get.
But that's just my opinion.

So, if there are no subway trains or buses, you cant drive home and you cant walk home - how do you get home?