firefly212: That firefighters and EMTs who don't roll over and blow a cop go to jail if they are out of line, and probably even if they aren't.

No. That emergency responders were killing people, and even the EMS people were tired of it.

http://www.tn.gov/sos/acts/104/pub/pc0243.pdf

By Vaughn, Favors, Marrero, Larry Turner
AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4; Title 63 and Title 68, relative to
emergency vehicles.
WHEREAS, emergency vehicles are often on critical missions and driven at high rates of
speed; and
WHEREAS, many persons driving such vehicles may lack adequate or comprehensive
training and may be subject to making dangerous errors; and
WHEREAS, although emergency vehicles are designed and equipped to save lives and
property, they may themselves be the cause of loss of life and of property; now, therefore,
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
SECTION 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the "Vanessa K. Free
Emergency Services Training Act of 2005".
SECTION 2. (a) It is the intent of the general assembly that each person who drives an
emergency vehicle in its official capacity shall be adequately trained to drive such
emergency vehicle. Documentation by the agency providing training shall include:
(1) Training in the operation of the vehicle in emergency and nonemergency situations;
(2) A review of all applicable laws pertaining to emergency vehicles; and
(3) Training to respond to actions of non-emergency vehicles.
Each emergency vehicle driver shall take not less than two (2) hours of training annually,
and each emergency vehicle driver shall take and pass a comprehensive examination
pertaining to Section 2(a)(1), (2) and (3) every year.
(b) The provisions of this section shall apply to all law enforcement personnel,
firefighters, including volunteer firefighters, rescue personnel, including volunteer rescue
personnel, and emergency services personnel.
SECTION 3. This act shall take effect January 1, 2006, the public welfare requiring it.

On November 17, 2002, Vanessa Free was killed in an automobile accident in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Vanessa and four other UTC freshmen were about one block off campus, when they stopped for a red light. When their light turned green, they started through the intersection, but had to immediately brake because a police car ran his red light, with blue lights only. Still having the green light, the girls started through the intersection again. Within seconds, a second police car also with blue lights only, ran the red light. This police car hit the girl's car broadside on the passenger side, sending their car spinning 275 feet. The traffic reconstruction specialist said that the police officer was going 65-70 miles per hour in a 35 miles-per-hour zone. Vanessa was riding in the front passenger seat and was killed instantly while the other girls received serious injuries. The police officer, who received minor injuries, had been on his way to a call concerning a fight.

Everyone hung up on the .08 standard being "too low" would be enlightened by looking at the limits around the world. Our standard, .08, is the highest level in the world (other countries share it, but no country with a standard has a more lax one). In Japan it is 0.00 and you can also be arrested for impaired driving if you are tired. Much of Europe is .02-.05.

You really don't have it that bad (Wiki article pops)

BronyMedic: StoPPeRmobile: How does enforcement work?

On another note, the private ambulance company I part-time for is rather infamous nationwide for it's use of DriveCams, and it's rather draconian policies for driving since they insure themselves.

12 hours strict bottle to throttle policy - even the suspicion of you either take a piss test, or go home. You also get reported to the state.
Get caught working the MDT driving? You don't drive anymore.
Get caught texting while driving? You don't drive anymore.
Get caught working a GPS, or playing on the phone? You don't drive anymore.
Get caught speeding? You don't drive anymore.
Get caught driving wrecklessly? You don't drive anymore.
Wreck? The camera footage and telemetry data gets used in court.
Block the camera? You get fired on the spot when they find out.

When you say "you don't drive anymore," does that mean just professionally?

StoPPeRmobile: When you say "you don't drive anymore," does that mean just professionally?

Why wouldn't it? They're best practice policies, not laws. It's an example of how that enforcement you claim that doesn't happen works.

Mugato: Silly Jesus: Why do people sign contracts that they don't read or agree with? (driver's license)

Well, because most people have to drive. The "you signed the contract" argument might be right legally but when they have you by the balls, it doesn't make it right morally. Especially if you have to sign off your Constitutional rights.

You're not signing off your Constitutional rights because it's not a right, sort of a circular argument. I see what you are saying though.

As I stated, I think that the checkpoints are a bad idea.

Silly Jesus: Everyone hung up on the .08 standard being "too low" would be enlightened by looking at the limits around the world. Our standard, .08, is the highest level in the world (other countries share it, but no country with a standard has a more lax one). In Japan it is 0.00 and you can also be arrested for impaired driving if you are tired. Much of Europe is .02-.05.

You really don't have it that bad (Wiki article pops)

Without a log, I wonder how you could prove you are not tired. Or I wonder how they can prove you are tired. I joked about that above. I called it The Tiredizzer TM.

Shouting into the wind: firefly212: BronyMedic: Shouting into the wind: I understand your point about legally drunk, but honestly if the limit is 0.00%, it forces a new mindset. No more worrying "Is my DD still sober? Did he have more than the allowable limit?" It becomes an easy question. My driver is completely sober. Fark you police. The need for checkpoint disappears, because there is no ambiguity. The answer is "yes" or "no". It is not the most fun socially, but the result is that people adjust and become more responsible. Just my opinion, YMMV, etc.

To be quite honest? I'm ok with this.

You had one beer, four hours ago... DRUNK! Seriously, there's no science to indicate that a person with a 0.01 bac is impaired in the least.... at some point, you and MADD need to get honest, you aren't against drunk driving, you're just trying to reinstate prohibition under the auspices of public safety.

No, not at all. You are piloting a 6000# vehicle through city streets alongside pedestrians, etc. The least you can do is stay completely sober while managing a complex task in a complex city with potentially lethal consequences. Why is this so hard to understand?

I agree that you should be sober, but there's absolutely no science that says a person who had a single beer four hours ago isn't sober. The reality is that the level of impairment at 0.01% is far less than the level of impairment of people driving with a cold or flu, people driving whilst angry because of work, people driving while tired either in the morning or after a long day of work, old people driving, young people driving, people who aren't physically fit driving, or damned near any other category. Your definition of impairment would have to be so ridiculously high that fewer than 1% of people would actually qualify to drive cars. Coming from an aviation background, I am totally against unsafe drivers... one of my biggest peeves with drivers licenses is that they don't yank them for people who get caught speeding 3 or even 4 times, people can actually pay a ticket for distracted driving and not lose their license. The least we could do is pretend we actually give two craps about road safety instead of instituting effective prohibition in its name while letting idiots, grandparents, and people too fat to have a reaction time any better than a sub-par cadaver keep on driving.

BronyMedic: StoPPeRmobile: Commercial users of communication tech need to be able to use the devices in the vehicle.

Except that they are instructed not to use the equipment while the vehicle is in motion. Hell, almost every automotive computer product includes this warning when you turn it on. GPSes make you OK through the box telling you just that before you can use it.

StoPPeRmobile: Apparently there is some kind of training you can receive that makes an ordinary person be able to use a communication device while operating a vehicle. Ever wonder why LEO's can drive safely while operating a laptop? It's the training.

Uh, what?

LEOs are not supposed to use those MDTs while operating the vehicle. They're supposed to pull over, or let their partner use them. This is basic material taught as part of an EVOC course. And if you wreck using them, you're at fault.

StoPPeRmobile: Here is a picture that demonstrates a user of scary comms.

More arguments from absurdity? I don't have to look away from the road to use a microphone. At any point, EVOC classes state you, as the driver, shouldn't be using anything other than the steering wheel anyway.

cops use laptops to scan license plates of cars they are tailgating while doing 65 on the freeway no matter what you think the law says about it. calling arguments absurd does not automatically make them so.

Silly Jesus: Everyone hung up on the .08 standard being "too low" would be enlightened by looking at the limits around the world. Our standard, .08, is the highest level in the world (other countries share it, but no country with a standard has a more lax one). In Japan it is 0.00 and you can also be arrested for impaired driving if you are tired. Much of Europe is .02-.05.

You really don't have it that bad (Wiki article pops)

They're dumber, so we should be happy to only be as dumb as we are?

0.11 was fine, and could be backed up with substantial studies and data showing significant impairment.... call me what you will, I just prefer my laws to be based in science instead of stigma.

Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: CruiserTwelve: steamingpile: Because the goal is money and they sure cant admit that.

As a guy that used to write the grant requests, manage the grants and manage sobriety checkpoints, I will tell you without hesitation that sobriety checkpoints do not generate money. If they did, and if governments really did these things for financial gain, don't you think you'd see a heck of a lot more of them?

So why do you do them?

They are done because people believe that they are effective. They are done for PR, as you see in this article. They are done because it is, like it or not, a part of the job of police to do them.

It has been my experience, and I have seen studies to back this up, that they are not nearly as effective as having those officers out on random patrol for DUI's, but someone in the chain of command thinks that they are effective, in reality or in the PR realm or otherwise.

The "it's all about the money" argument that is thrown out in any discussion of police is an incredibly intellectually lazy one. The vast majority of the time the "windfall" that is claimed is nowhere near a windfall and is sometimes a loss.

What is a better way to discourage a behavior than through fines? Money is the most precious thing to most people and therefore the loss of it provides the greatest incentive for change. Arguing that because fines are collected there must be some sort of huge profit is absurd.

It's incredibly easy to say "they are just doing it for the money", but in reality the individual officers are impacted very little by what money does come into the department and unless it is a tiny department they wouldn't have any idea what money went where anyway. Do you honestly believe that LEO can't be doing it for the right reasons or simply because it is their job or because they want to help people? It does sound cliche, yes, but the "bad apples" that become the face of police work are a tiny minority and making all LEO's out to be that caricature highlights your ignorance.

""If we are only targeting alcohol, we are missing 50 percent. That's unacceptable to us."....because there's a lot of money to be made on that untapped cash-crop!


/mixed feelings on this. I know he wants to bust every pot smoker he runs across, but I do feel that a lot of people on PRESCRIPTION drugs should be pulled over for DUI also. People taking things like Oxycontin or muscle-relaxants should not be behind the wheel. They make you even more dangerous than the guy doing 50 in a 55 while listening to Willie Nelson.

StoPPeRmobile: Silly Jesus: Everyone hung up on the .08 standard being "too low" would be enlightened by looking at the limits around the world. Our standard, .08, is the highest level in the world (other countries share it, but no country with a standard has a more lax one). In Japan it is 0.00 and you can also be arrested for impaired driving if you are tired. Much of Europe is .02-.05.

You really don't have it that bad (Wiki article pops)

Without a log, I wonder how you could prove you are not tired. Or I wonder how they can prove you are tired. I joked about that above. I called it The Tiredizzer TM.

For the Japanese it says that it's up to the discretion of the officer, whatever that means.

There are exercises similar to Standardized Field Sobriety that can be done to gauge how tired someone is based on slow reaction times etc. I don't know anything about their scientific validity though. I would imagine that a battery of exercises similar to SFS could be come up with though.

BronyMedic: StoPPeRmobile: When you say "you don't drive anymore," does that mean just professionally?

Why wouldn't it? They're best practice policies, not laws. It's an example of how that enforcement you claim that doesn't happen works.

Where did I make such a "claim?"

firefly212: Shouting into the wind: firefly212: BronyMedic: Shouting into the wind: I understand your point about legally drunk, but honestly if the limit is 0.00%, it forces a new mindset. No more worrying "Is my DD still sober? Did he have more than the allowable limit?" It becomes an easy question. My driver is completely sober. Fark you police. The need for checkpoint disappears, because there is no ambiguity. The answer is "yes" or "no". It is not the most fun socially, but the result is that people adjust and become more responsible. Just my opinion, YMMV, etc.

To be quite honest? I'm ok with this.

You had one beer, four hours ago... DRUNK! Seriously, there's no science to indicate that a person with a 0.01 bac is impaired in the least.... at some point, you and MADD need to get honest, you aren't against drunk driving, you're just trying to reinstate prohibition under the auspices of public safety.

No, not at all. You are piloting a 6000# vehicle through city streets alongside pedestrians, etc. The least you can do is stay completely sober while managing a complex task in a complex city with potentially lethal consequences. Why is this so hard to understand?

I agree that you should be sober, but there's absolutely no science that says a person who had a single beer four hours ago isn't sober. The reality is that the level of impairment at 0.01% is far less than the level of impairment of people driving with a cold or flu, people driving whilst angry because of work, people driving while tired either in the morning or after a long day of work, old people driving, young people driving, people who aren't physically fit driving, or damned near any other category. Your definition of impairment would have to be so ridiculously high that fewer than 1% of people would actually qualify to drive cars. Coming from an aviation background, I am totally against unsafe drivers... one of my biggest peeves with drivers licenses is that they don't yank them for people who ...

All of the other reasons you mentioned are valid. However, drinking is a measurable impediment to driving. This is why I say 0.00% is a valid measurement. If the limit is zero for this one measurable impediment, it creates a cultural shift as well. All of a sudden, when the DD says "No, I am driving" the drunken party members don`t say "Aw, c`mon Bob! you can have 2-3 beers with us!!!" which becomes 10. After that the group says"Bob, you only had 10 beers, you can still drive us home, right!?!?". 0.00% forces responsibility, and the reduced incentive for checkpoints. Once again, YMMV...

firefly212: Silly Jesus: Everyone hung up on the .08 standard being "too low" would be enlightened by looking at the limits around the world. Our standard, .08, is the highest level in the world (other countries share it, but no country with a standard has a more lax one). In Japan it is 0.00 and you can also be arrested for impaired driving if you are tired. Much of Europe is .02-.05.

You really don't have it that bad (Wiki article pops)

They're dumber, so we should be happy to only be as dumb as we are?

0.11 was fine, and could be backed up with substantial studies and data showing significant impairment.... call me what you will, I just prefer my laws to be based in science instead of stigma.

The science backs up .08 and lower. What studies do you have indicating otherwise?

Significant impairment begins at .08 and often at even lower levels. I've experienced it firsthand. .08 is a very reasonable standard for per se DUI based upon my personal experience as well as current studies.

Silly Jesus: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: CruiserTwelve: steamingpile: Because the goal is money and they sure cant admit that.

As a guy that used to write the grant requests, manage the grants and manage sobriety checkpoints, I will tell you without hesitation that sobriety checkpoints do not generate money. If they did, and if governments really did these things for financial gain, don't you think you'd see a heck of a lot more of them?

So why do you do them?

They are done because people believe that they are effective. They are done for PR, as you see in this article. They are done because it is, like it or not, a part of the job of police to do them.

It has been my experience, and I have seen studies to back this up, that they are not nearly as effective as having those officers out on random patrol for DUI's, but someone in the chain of command thinks that they are effective, in reality or in the PR realm or otherwise.

The "it's all about the money" argument that is thrown out in any discussion of police is an incredibly intellectually lazy one. The vast majority of the time the "windfall" that is claimed is nowhere near a windfall and is sometimes a loss.

What is a better way to discourage a behavior than through fines? Money is the most precious thing to most people and therefore the loss of it provides the greatest incentive for change. Arguing that because fines are collected there must be some sort of huge profit is absurd.

It's incredibly easy to say "they are just doing it for the money", but in reality the individual officers are impacted very little by what money does come into the department and unless it is a tiny department they wouldn't have any idea what money went where anyway. Do you honestly believe that LEO can't be doing it for the right reasons or simply because it is their job or because they want to help people? It does sound cliche, yes, but the "bad apples" that become the face of police work are a tiny minority and making all LEO' ...

I don't think you need to invite political supporters and people from MADD if your only goal is public safety. Ya, I have a hard time believing that checkpoints with invited guests and camera people are more about public safety than politics and PR... the tiny minority sucks... even in Aurora, the town I referenced earlier (they were forced to hire back a cop they fired for abusing a person in custody), that guy is still on the force, he taints them like poison in the well. Sure it may only be one guy out of 40, but you know darned well that if you're familiar with the case and you get pulled over, you're going to be worried that the guy who pulled you over is that one. Police unions fight hard to put the cancerous tumors back into the police departments, it's unfair to blame the public for being unhappy about it when even police chiefs can't fire crooked cops.

Sounds like what we need are intercoms and sliding trays so that you never have to roll your window down.

Shouting into the wind: firefly212: Shouting into the wind: firefly212: BronyMedic: Shouting into the wind: I understand your point about legally drunk, but honestly if the limit is 0.00%, it forces a new mindset. No more worrying "Is my DD still sober? Did he have more than the allowable limit?" It becomes an easy question. My driver is completely sober. Fark you police. The need for checkpoint disappears, because there is no ambiguity. The answer is "yes" or "no". It is not the most fun socially, but the result is that people adjust and become more responsible. Just my opinion, YMMV, etc.

To be quite honest? I'm ok with this.

You had one beer, four hours ago... DRUNK! Seriously, there's no science to indicate that a person with a 0.01 bac is impaired in the least.... at some point, you and MADD need to get honest, you aren't against drunk driving, you're just trying to reinstate prohibition under the auspices of public safety.

No, not at all. You are piloting a 6000# vehicle through city streets alongside pedestrians, etc. The least you can do is stay completely sober while managing a complex task in a complex city with potentially lethal consequences. Why is this so hard to understand?

I agree that you should be sober, but there's absolutely no science that says a person who had a single beer four hours ago isn't sober. The reality is that the level of impairment at 0.01% is far less than the level of impairment of people driving with a cold or flu, people driving whilst angry because of work, people driving while tired either in the morning or after a long day of work, old people driving, young people driving, people who aren't physically fit driving, or damned near any other category. Your definition of impairment would have to be so ridiculously high that fewer than 1% of people would actually qualify to drive cars. Coming from an aviation background, I am totally against unsafe drivers... one of my biggest peeves with drivers licenses is that they don't yank them for ...

I have one question.

How are ugly people supposed to get laid?

Old news is old.
Like 1990's old.

The worst drunk drivers I have ever met were all police officers.

So you can differentiate the smell of an alcoholic beverage from, say, a hawaiian punch? Or, ketones? Or toothpaste? Or cologne? How far away from them where you when you "smelled" it? What was the temperature or time of day?

No, so that's why 'smell of alcohol' isn't sufficient evidence for a conviction or even an arrest.

So let's flip that around: construct an argument where 'smell of alcohol' is statistically so far removed from 'operating while intoxicated' that it doesn't warrant further measures to establish a cause.

Like, say, a few questions, followed by a field sobriety test if the results of questioning are statistically consistent with OWI.

.. followed by a rough measurement with a field breathalyzer if the FST results are statistically consistent with OWI.

.. followed by a second sobriety test in a controlled setting and breath analysis on a machine which is certified and calibrated if the rough measurement is consistent with OWI.

.. followed by arrest if the results of those tests conform the conditions for arrest under the OWI statutes.

.. followed by a trial, where your lawyer still gets a chance to argue why all the preceding evidence is bogus.

Shouting into the wind: firefly212: BronyMedic: Shouting into the wind: I understand your point about legally drunk, but honestly if the limit is 0.00%, it forces a new mindset. No more worrying "Is my DD still sober? Did he have more than the allowable limit?" It becomes an easy question. My driver is completely sober. Fark you police. The need for checkpoint disappears, because there is no ambiguity. The answer is "yes" or "no". It is not the most fun socially, but the result is that people adjust and become more responsible. Just my opinion, YMMV, etc.

To be quite honest? I'm ok with this.

You had one beer, four hours ago... DRUNK! Seriously, there's no science to indicate that a person with a 0.01 bac is impaired in the least.... at some point, you and MADD need to get honest, you aren't against drunk driving, you're just trying to reinstate prohibition under the auspices of public safety.

No, not at all. You are piloting a 6000# vehicle through city streets alongside pedestrians, etc. The least you can do is stay completely sober while managing a complex task in a complex city with potentially lethal consequences. Why is this so hard to understand?

I am not a child. I don't need both hands on the wheel, or for someone to tell me what to do with my farking cell phone. This is not rocket science, a lot of actual tards have licenses. And I know I sure as hell can go buy a 24oz beer and drink it on the way to a party if I want to. fark off!

CruiserTwelve: chaddsfarkprefect: Illegal search.

Not according to the SCOTUS.

Also, I was involved in the testing of those flashlights in about 1987-88. They're not new.

On the side of the road? :)

Random breath testing has been happening in Australia for a long time now (since 1982). I can't say that have seen the rapid erosion of civil liberties there.

All I can see is a major drop in car accidents.

See this article for background clicky pop

A google search of "random breath testing NSW civil liberties" doesn't seem to bring up much. I'm prepared to be corrected on evidence that the 30 year history of breath testing drivers for alcohol has resulted in the massive erosion of civil liberties and the obeying intrusion of the government into the lives of its citizens.

It has, however, been estimated to have saved nearly 5,000 lives over the first 20 years.

Maul555: Shouting into the wind: firefly212: BronyMedic: Shouting into the wind: I understand your point about legally drunk, but honestly if the limit is 0.00%, it forces a new mindset. No more worrying "Is my DD still sober? Did he have more than the allowable limit?" It becomes an easy question. My driver is completely sober. Fark you police. The need for checkpoint disappears, because there is no ambiguity. The answer is "yes" or "no". It is not the most fun socially, but the result is that people adjust and become more responsible. Just my opinion, YMMV, etc.

To be quite honest? I'm ok with this.

You had one beer, four hours ago... DRUNK! Seriously, there's no science to indicate that a person with a 0.01 bac is impaired in the least.... at some point, you and MADD need to get honest, you aren't against drunk driving, you're just trying to reinstate prohibition under the auspices of public safety.

No, not at all. You are piloting a 6000# vehicle through city streets alongside pedestrians, etc. The least you can do is stay completely sober while managing a complex task in a complex city with potentially lethal consequences. Why is this so hard to understand?

I am not a child. I don't need both hands on the wheel, or for someone to tell me what to do with my farking cell phone. This is not rocket science, a lot of actual tards have licenses. And I know I sure as hell can go buy a 24oz beer and drink it on the way to a party if I want to. fark off!

2/10
/Found one more tard with a license...

firefly212: Silly Jesus: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: CruiserTwelve: steamingpile: Because the goal is money and they sure cant admit that.

As a guy that used to write the grant requests, manage the grants and manage sobriety checkpoints, I will tell you without hesitation that sobriety checkpoints do not generate money. If they did, and if governments really did these things for financial gain, don't you think you'd see a heck of a lot more of them?

So why do you do them?

They are done because people believe that they are effective. They are done for PR, as you see in this article. They are done because it is, like it or not, a part of the job of police to do them.

It has been my experience, and I have seen studies to back this up, that they are not nearly as effective as having those officers out on random patrol for DUI's, but someone in the chain of command thinks that they are effective, in reality or in the PR realm or otherwise.

The "it's all about the money" argument that is thrown out in any discussion of police is an incredibly intellectually lazy one. The vast majority of the time the "windfall" that is claimed is nowhere near a windfall and is sometimes a loss.

What is a better way to discourage a behavior than through fines? Money is the most precious thing to most people and therefore the loss of it provides the greatest incentive for change. Arguing that because fines are collected there must be some sort of huge profit is absurd.

It's incredibly easy to say "they are just doing it for the money", but in reality the individual officers are impacted very little by what money does come into the department and unless it is a tiny department they wouldn't have any idea what money went where anyway. Do you honestly believe that LEO can't be doing it for the right reasons or simply because it is their job or because they want to help people? It does sound cliche, yes, but the "bad apples" that become the face of police work are a tiny minority and ma ...

Agreed, there isn't enough flexibility to rid departments of the bad apples.

As for media and MADD at checkpoints, I agree that it's an absurd practice. Despite their intentions, checkpoints are more for PR than anything.

I do think that the media surrounding the checkpoints does have some impact on making people think twice in the future about driving drunk (sort of a version of the public hangings of the past, I guess) but any benefit gained from that is cancelled out by being incredibly inefficient as compared to traditional patrols and of course the 'stop everyone for no reason' component.

Shouting into the wind: Maul555: Shouting into the wind: firefly212: BronyMedic: Shouting into the wind: I understand your point about legally drunk, but honestly if the limit is 0.00%, it forces a new mindset. No more worrying "Is my DD still sober? Did he have more than the allowable limit?" It becomes an easy question. My driver is completely sober. Fark you police. The need for checkpoint disappears, because there is no ambiguity. The answer is "yes" or "no". It is not the most fun socially, but the result is that people adjust and become more responsible. Just my opinion, YMMV, etc.

To be quite honest? I'm ok with this.

You had one beer, four hours ago... DRUNK! Seriously, there's no science to indicate that a person with a 0.01 bac is impaired in the least.... at some point, you and MADD need to get honest, you aren't against drunk driving, you're just trying to reinstate prohibition under the auspices of public safety.

No, not at all. You are piloting a 6000# vehicle through city streets alongside pedestrians, etc. The least you can do is stay completely sober while managing a complex task in a complex city with potentially lethal consequences. Why is this so hard to understand?

I am not a child. I don't need both hands on the wheel, or for someone to tell me what to do with my farking cell phone. This is not rocket science, a lot of actual tards have licenses. And I know I sure as hell can go buy a 24oz beer and drink it on the way to a party if I want to. fark off!

2/10
/Found one more tard with a license...

except I am not trolling... I also smoke weed while driving some times... hell, I have smoked weed, while drinking a beer, while driving on the FREEWAY more times than I have fingers and toes. What does my drivers record look like? not so much as a parking ticket in 6+ years, and only 1 vehicle collision ever (not drunk and found to be not at fault).

This why I own an old cab. Cabs always get waved through.

fredklein: Kanemano: i stick to a strict drink and stagger policy, If I'm going to drink, I walk or take a cab, it's not that hard people and it's cheaper than jail time.

Ooh, sorry, no. Thanks for playing, though. You see, you're guilty of Public Intoxication. Heck, in some places, cops have been known to actually go into a bar and arrest people for that very thing.

Here in Anchorage, they are doing just that
http://www.adn.com/2012/02/15/v-printer/2319873/crackdown-on-bar-drin k ing-is-law.html

yingtong: No, so that's why 'smell of alcohol' isn't sufficient evidence for a conviction or even an arrest.

You missed the point. I was calling 9beers out on going full SkinnyHead.

Gyrfalcon: Honest Bender: BronyMedic: Wait. Don't bother citing it. I just pulled it up. And it actually doesn't say that.

It's called an opinion for a reason.

The Court also held that the impact on drivers, such as in delaying them from reaching their destination, was negligible, and that the brief questioning to gain "reasonable suspicion" similarly had a negligible impact on the drivers' Fourth Amendment right from unreasonable search (implying that any more detailed or invasive searches would be treated differently).

Let me break that down for you:

"The court held that driver's rights were only impacted a little. If you had violated their rights a little more, we would have ruled differently."

That's what they're saying. Clear as day. Apparently SCOTUS thinks it's ok to violate our constitutional rights "just a little" as long as you get a couple drunks off the road.

And it's only because some assholes insist that "they can drive just fine!" when they're drunk that we have to put up with this. I can't stress that enough. It's not because people are driving drunk. It's because they're driving drunk AND HITTING OTHER PEOPLE WHO THEN GET INJURED OR KILLED that we have to have laws like this.

When "my" rights become more important than "everyone else's rights so f*ck you", then we get laws like this. If there were some other way to ensure that drunks only killed themselves when they drive around at night with a .75 BAC, then there'd be no need for any of this, would there? But since I'd like to arrive safely at home and not have to worry about it, I have to grit my teeth and support checkpoints and DUI arrests.

Holy shiat. He gets it. HE GETS IT! Really. There needs to be a freakin' medal or X-Box achivement for this kind of stuff here.

StoPPeRmobile: Where did I make such a "claim?"

StoPPeRmobile at 2012-04-15 06:35:50 PM:
Classes, huh? Not supposed to? That sounds awfully familiar. How does enforcement work? [Cute little picture of the most unfunny comic since Buzz Killington, Jeff Dunham]

Maul555: BronyMedic: StoPPeRmobile: Commercial users of communication tech need to be able to use the devices in the vehicle.

Except that they are instructed not to use the equipment while the vehicle is in motion. Hell, almost every automotive computer product includes this warning when you turn it on. GPSes make you OK through the box telling you just that before you can use it.

StoPPeRmobile: Apparently there is some kind of training you can receive that makes an ordinary person be able to use a communication device while operating a vehicle. Ever wonder why LEO's can drive safely while operating a laptop? It's the training.

Uh, what?

LEOs are not supposed to use those MDTs while operating the vehicle. They're supposed to pull over, or let their partner use them. This is basic material taught as part of an EVOC course. And if you wreck using them, you're at fault.

StoPPeRmobile: Here is a picture that demonstrates a user of scary comms.

More arguments from absurdity? I don't have to look away from the road to use a microphone. At any point, EVOC classes state you, as the driver, shouldn't be using anything other than the steering wheel anyway.

cops use laptops to scan license plates of cars they are tailgating while doing 65 on the freeway no matter what you think the law says about it. calling arguments absurd does not automatically make them so.

They're also automated systems that are, per the manufacturer, supposed to either be used while stopped, or by the partner of the driver.

crab66: fredklein: Heck, in some places, cops have been known to actually go into a bar and arrest people for that very thing.

Please show me an example of this happening where people were not being obnoxious dickheads.

Right here in Anchorage

BronyMedic: Maul555: BronyMedic: StoPPeRmobile: Commercial users of communication tech need to be able to use the devices in the vehicle.

Except that they are instructed not to use the equipment while the vehicle is in motion. Hell, almost every automotive computer product includes this warning when you turn it on. GPSes make you OK through the box telling you just that before you can use it.

StoPPeRmobile: Apparently there is some kind of training you can receive that makes an ordinary person be able to use a communication device while operating a vehicle. Ever wonder why LEO's can drive safely while operating a laptop? It's the training.

Uh, what?

LEOs are not supposed to use those MDTs while operating the vehicle. They're supposed to pull over, or let their partner use them. This is basic material taught as part of an EVOC course. And if you wreck using them, you're at fault.

StoPPeRmobile: Here is a picture that demonstrates a user of scary comms.

More arguments from absurdity? I don't have to look away from the road to use a microphone. At any point, EVOC classes state you, as the driver, shouldn't be using anything other than the steering wheel anyway.

cops use laptops to scan license plates of cars they are tailgating while doing 65 on the freeway no matter what you think the law says about it. calling arguments absurd does not automatically make them so.

They're also automated systems that are, per the manufacturer, supposed to either be used while stopped, or by the partner of the driver.

The real world does not obey the laws of the land as if they where the laws of physics, and for that matter, neither does the law...

Honest Bender: BronyMedic: Wait. Don't bother citing it. I just pulled it up. And it actually doesn't say that.

It's called an opinion for a reason.

The Court also held that the impact on drivers, such as in delaying them from reaching their destination, was negligible, and that the brief questioning to gain "reasonable suspicion" similarly had a negligible impact on the drivers' Fourth Amendment right from unreasonable search (implying that any more detailed or invasive searches would be treated differently).

Let me break that down for you:

"The court held that driver's rights were only impacted a little. If you had violated their rights a little more, we would have ruled differently."

That's what they're saying. Clear as day. Apparently SCOTUS thinks it's ok to violate our constitutional rights "just a little" as long as you get a couple drunks off the road.

They seem to be saying here that their rights were not violated.

I don't like checkpoints either, but you are misrepresenting the ruling by saying that SCOTUS agreed to "violate your rights just a little."

FROM THE OPINION

By Justice Rehnquist

This case poses the question whether a state's use of highway sobriety checkpoints violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. We hold that it does not and therefore reverse the contrary holding of the Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Honest Bender: Gyrfalcon: But since I'd like to arrive safely at home and not have to worry about it, I have to grit my teeth and support checkpoints and DUI arrests.

No, dude! F that noise!

You find a way to deter impaired driving using means that don't violate the basic tenets of your farking country!the opinion of Honest Bender.

Get more cops cruising the streets for drunks.
Make punishments for repeat offenders more harsh.
Educated people about the dangers of impaired driving.

The answer is not, "Well, I'm afraid of a vague threat. Go ahead and wipe your ass with the constitution Go ahead and wipe your ass with Honest Bender's opinions. Derr."

Fixed that for you.

Shouting into the wind: firefly212: Shouting into the wind: firefly212: BronyMedic: Shouting into the wind: I understand your point about legally drunk, but honestly if the limit is 0.00%, it forces a new mindset. No more worrying "Is my DD still sober? Did he have more than the allowable limit?" It becomes an easy question. My driver is completely sober. Fark you police. The need for checkpoint disappears, because there is no ambiguity. The answer is "yes" or "no". It is not the most fun socially, but the result is that people adjust and become more responsible. Just my opinion, YMMV, etc.

To be quite honest? I'm ok with this.

You had one beer, four hours ago... DRUNK! Seriously, there's no science to indicate that a person with a 0.01 bac is impaired in the least.... at some point, you and MADD need to get honest, you aren't against drunk driving, you're just trying to reinstate prohibition under the auspices of public safety.

No, not at all. You are piloting a 6000# vehicle through city streets alongside pedestrians, etc. The least you can do is stay completely sober while managing a complex task in a complex city with potentially lethal consequences. Why is this so hard to understand?

I agree that you should be sober, but there's absolutely no science that says a person who had a single beer four hours ago isn't sober. The reality is that the level of impairment at 0.01% is far less than the level of impairment of people driving with a cold or flu, people driving whilst angry because of work, people driving while tired either in the morning or after a long day of work, old people driving, young people driving, people who aren't physically fit driving, or damned near any other category. Your definition of impairment would have to be so ridiculously high that fewer than 1% of people would actually qualify to drive cars. Coming from an aviation background, I am totally against unsafe drivers... one of my biggest peeves with drivers licenses is that they don't yank them for ...

We have more people in jail than China, and your solution to the issue of responsibility would put yet more into the custody of the government. Maybe the key to responsibility is responsibility. Treating our citizens as children who could not have a single glass of wine with dinner, then be ok to drive after a movie, is not "responsibility" in even the most vague sense, it is patronizing idiocy that would have us treat adults as children in the name of forcing them to behave in a manner you, and a few other select prohibitionists, feel is more grown up.

Honest Bender: Gyrfalcon: But since I'd like to arrive safely at home and not have to worry about it, I have to grit my teeth and support checkpoints and DUI arrests.

No, dude! F that noise!

You find a way to deter impaired driving using means that don't violate the basic tenets of your farking country!

Get more cops cruising the streets for drunks.
Make punishments for repeat offenders more harsh.
Educated people about the dangers of impaired driving.

The answer is not, "Well, I'm afraid of a vague threat. Go ahead and wipe your ass with the constitution. Derr."

Bolded for those who missed it, and it is absolutely the correct thinking in 99.9% of all problems that anyone would like to have the law deal with in the United States...

The problem with the anti-drunk driver crowd is that they lump everyone into a big "asshole who kills people" category, when the reality is that most drunk drivers fit into my category. I call this category the "can handle its"..... The idea that someone can handle their drink or smoke or other intoxicant is beyond comprehension...

firefly212: We have more people in jail than China, and your solution to the issue of responsibility would put yet more into the custody of the government.

Except that the reason for that isn't just "laws exist". It's racial prejudice, unfair application of the letter of the law, socioeconomic and educational factors, and many other issues at play. Distilling a complex, multifactoral issue such as incarceration rates down to "well, it's because laws exist and YOU WANT MORE" is at best an irrelevant appeal.

Well, that and China shoots people for crimes we'd put them in jail for.

firefly212: Maybe the key to responsibility is responsibility.

That seems to be a key concept many people are lacking. Of course, the argument goes out the window with no less than 10 individuals over the course of this thread proud they drink and drive, and will continue to do so despite it being illegal.

firefly212: Treating our citizens as children who could not have a single glass of wine with dinner, then be ok to drive after a movie, is not "responsibility" in even the most vague sense, it is patronizing idiocy that would have us treat adults as children in the name of forcing them to behave in a manner you, and a few other select prohibitionists, feel is more grown up.


The patronizing idiocy is that you create a blatently idiotic strawman situation to argue from, and then accuse anyone who supports strict DUI laws and sentencing (hit them in the pocketbooks and garnish wages IMHO. A weekend in jail does nothing. And they just drive without a license) of being a prohibitionist teatotaller.

The Court also held that the impact on drivers, such as in delaying them from reaching their destination, was negligible, and that the brief questioning to gain "reasonable suspicion" similarly had a negligible impact on the drivers' Fourth Amendment right from unreasonable search (implying that any more detailed or invasive searches would be treated differently).


Let me break that down for you:

You're falling into the 'absolute rights' trap, which is one of the first things people unlearn when they make any study of law whatsoever. With enough ingenuity, you can create an argument that anything imposes some restriction on any right someone may have. It's trivially easy to justify two positions that are mutually incompatible that way, so from a practical standpoint, the concept of 'absolute rights' fails the 'you can prove any conclusion from a false premise' test.

Law, ever since Gropius, is concerned with the balance of impact on the competing rights of entities with opposing interests. There is no absolute winner, because that implies an absolute loser, which is a clear violation of that entity's absolute rights (see how that works?). The goal of law is to arrange things so the burden on each party is proportional to the injury that party can inflict on the other.

If SCOTUS says the impact is 'negligible', it means 'the degree to which you are guilty of murder because you ate lunch while someone else in the world starved to death'.

Go study some tort theory, and when you can discuss that intelligently we'll continue the discussion.

yingtong: Law, ever since Gropius, is concerned with the balance of impact on the competing rights of entities with opposing interests. There is no absolute winner, because that implies an absolute loser, which is a clear violation of that entity's absolute rights (see how that works?). The goal of law is to arrange things so the burden on each party is proportional to the injury that party can inflict on the other.

If SCOTUS says the impact is 'negligible', it means 'the degree to which you are guilty of murder because you ate lunch while someone else in the world starved to death'.

I can grant this.

Still, as implemented, the practice of DUI checkpoints is held to be constitutional under the 4th Amendment in that they have reasonable, probable cause to perform a sobriety check. I'm not arguing that they should be allowed to search a vehicle without probable cause, or a warrant, nor that they should be able to yank you out of the window, impound your car, and beat you senselessly because they "smell alcohol on you".