If you'd tested your reaction time, it would have been noticeably slower than normal. "Having a buzz" or not is absolutely nothing to do with being a danger to other road users.
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DUI
- Thread starter Indiana Mike
- Start date
Hawaii Islander said:
True, but those type of devices are only used as preliminary testers along with field sobriety tests. They are far from accurate and are not the devices used for legal, documentable, and verifiable BAC results. Its really a moot point anyway. Blort states he was an. 09 and wasn't buzzed. So he may have been an. 08 or .11. He shouldn't have been driving either way. Next he is going to be one of those guys who claims 2 beers will make you test over the limit in an effort to make money. Neither item is true.
Even the cheapo handheld breathalyzers are accurate to about +/- .02 - which isn't bad. Precision units are more like +/- .005.
Of course, thos precision units the cops use are all too often incorrectly used and not correctly calibrated.
I'm not qualified to determine whether or not his breathalyzer is accurate, so I haven't made anything up like you claimed. I would like to believe I could pass a field sobriety test if I'm at point .08. but I have never had one done. I get nervous around cops anyways because I'm a mental case, so I probably couldn't pass one not having a drop as booze.
Plus who's to say a cops expensive breathalyzer is celebrated correctly? They may tell you they are, and laws may be require that they are, but that doesn't mean they are. I'm very skeptical of cops and their tactics, in general. I have a belief if they really want to bust you for something, they will find a way.
Well it's easy money for the cops isn't it? Either give out 100 tickets of £60 each for a usually minor driving offence or spend £1000+ on a conviction for a more serious crime which might only see a fine of £100 or so being handed out, with a loss to the police.
I am NOT saying that drunk-drivers shouldn't be punished, only that the above that I typed makes people resent even good law for the money aspect.
I don't, for the life of me, understand why some one would resent a law that they are in no danger of breaking if they have some semblance of self control.
sloasdaylight said:
Agreed. I have never been too concerned about the fines charged to drunk drivers.
Don't know about any other countries, but the number of offences for which you can be ticketed in the UK has increased dramatically, including some offences which were previously not ticketed or dealt with by police at all. Some people have complained that this is little better than a fiddle by police so they don't end up filling in tons of paperwork in the station office and as I've said before, they get easy revenue from fines for little work.
Another one in this country is speed cameras. Some cameras in this country have netted fine revenues of £1,000,000 or sometimes even more. THe principle is the same- it's cheaper to put up a speed camera than it is to have a human police officer out on the roads. And this is why people complain.
Again, I'm not saying DUIs shouldn't be unpunished.
The only thing I resent is when the law is constricted to the point where it ceases to be about safety and starts to be about revenue generation (see: redlight cameras and shortened yellow lights). The point of these laws should be harm minimization.
At current limits, I think the law is reasonable - on the other hand, I wouldn't support dropping the BAC limit to .01
But those are complaints from regular or occasional offenders defending their "right" to have lower statistical chances of being caught.
Bollocks!
Sorry, this just sounds like crying because you might get caught speeding to me. If it's cheaper to enforce the law with speeding cameras than putting an actual officer out there, potentially in harm's way, costing tax payers more money, and they can still generate revenue, then what is the issue? If you don't want a ticket, and don't want to pay the fine, don't speed.
That's pretty much how I view certain laws as well. I also do not respect the way people of wealth and status seem to be immune to the same punishments that we'd get for breaking the same law.
The Sheriff's Department came to my campus once and gave out backpacks with little trinkets. One of the trinkets was a pen and on the pen was the average cost of a DUI. It was about $9,000, IIRC it was $9,100.
That's not exactly pocket change for most people, so I can see why some think that it's a "racket." Now, just because it generates good revenue, does not make it a racket. IIRC, the intent of harsher DUI laws/punishments were designed to deter people from drinking and driving, and to deter repeat offenders, because (we all know) driving does kill a lot of people. The revenue generation is the secondary effect to breaking the law. Making them costly is a very good idea because most people seem to pay greater attention to things and are more reluctant to repeat something when you dip into their wallet.
FWIW, I got a DUI back in 1996 and to this day, I actually consider it one of the best things that ever happened to me.
well- the is that yes, if you have money to get a lawyer and to pay fines, you wont serve much jail time. someone who is a multiple offender for car theft, for example, cannot really be fined that much, because they have no money. they will most likely see jail time, which costs them nothing, but costs the tax payer money to house them. its kind of messed up, but are you going to garnish the wages of someone with no job or someone living close to or below the poverty line?
again: the system isnt designed, nor was it conceived to be profitable, but it sure does help to have a good lawyer. the probation period for dui offenses make it easier to get a second or third dui, but i think thats an over reaction. the law says you can have a couple drinks and legally drive, but once you pass that mark you cant drive on one beer. it seems to be a bit overly punitive.
and ya- ive gotten one too. the class i took to get my license back was just dumb. we honestly watched the film when a man loves a woman, because meg ryan has a drinking problem in it. however, it was a two hour class, and the running time of the movie is over two hours. by the time you get it started etc, its physically impossible to finish it... so, what do you learn? or are you just doing what you have to do and no one really cares how you get that done? plus, a government body can sentence you to aa meetings, which, historically speaking, are clearly religious entities, so thats a legitimate church/state issue.
the punishments should exist, because you can hurt people. its a dumb thing to do. i completely get that now, and never thought id be the idiot to get one, but i only learned how the system works. i havent a clue what i was supposed to learn, if anything. or you can get community service. painting park benches has what to do with rehabilitation? reform and not punishment (though they can, and, probably, should coincide) is completely absent. its not a system that really works or helps people. you just get to know the rules and how to skirt them.
cheezewiz said:
Thank you! So many people claim they are in it for the money, as if they get a bonus. Again again: the legal system IS NOT designed to make money. Any lawyers wanna back that up? I know a few, and they all say the same thing. Traffic stops, whatever... they aren't paid to issue tickets.
I was once told that Alcoholics are those that can't afford to drink? I like the joke and may have to try that, pretty clever.
You are one ignorant tool. YOU have a DUI (maybe multiple) and you have no clue.
Seriously dude, grow up before you kill someone.
I just like being able to say I've never had a DUI and never will have one. It's just another thing I don't have to worry about.
I learned that getting caught for a DUI is extremely expensive and back then, that was enough to keep me from ever doing it again. I was also a pretty heavy drinker back then and the DUI sobered me up.
I do agree that in some ways it teaches you to skirt the system a bit. I had several friends that got DUI's before I got mine. They all gave me a heads up of what to expect and based on the intelligence they provided me, I told a few lies to get out of certain aspects of the punishment phase. Substance abuse counseling, being the biggest. The lady interviewing me to determine if I needed a substance abuse assessment knew I was lying, but there was no way she could prove it. So I saved myself a small fortune by not having to take an assessment that would've ultimately landed me in substance abuse counseling. Yeah yeah, I know it was a lousy thing to do, but honestly, I didn't need a counselor telling me I had a problem. I knew I was drinking heavily and well aware that it just caused me a serious problem in my life.
The most difficult aspect of rehabilitation in DUIs/substance abuse is that in most cases counseling is not mandatory. An evaluation usually is. The only problem with an assessment is a client can lie their ass off, and unless you can prove they're lying, there's nothing you can do to legitimately warrant placing someone in counseling like that.
Most prisons and no county jails around here provide services like this either. It's a shame actually, because many other crimes do involve drugs/alcohol and if they weren't under the influence of a substance, they might not have committed the crime. This is why I'm glad to see more and more counties implementing drug court programs. It focuses more on rehabilitation than punishment. In an odd way, the rehabilitation is actually their punishment.
