I had never even considered the blood test as a means of eradicating an impairment conviction. That is a good point. It is still unfortunate that things would have to go soooo far and people win lawsuits for being detained and getting towed before someone sees that this is not actually much of an improvement in methodology for preventing drunk driving. A better approach would be to limit liquor licenses and not allow service vehicles out certain hours such as 12-5am which are the main problem hours of people leaving a bar drunk driving. Of course just as you said some people are determined to drive around drunk and people have even been caught driving drunk within days of getting out of prison for DUI nearby so I'm not surprised at the lack of responsibility shown by many people these days. Let's not forget about historic laws such as prohibition which didn't work to prevent drunk driving deaths either when trying to solve problems. Drunk driving will most likely continue to happen unless everyone has to use a breathalyzer lock to start their ignition but we don't want to wake up in a society that extreme do we?
NHTSA assaults 4th ammendment rights on MS highways
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Look at some of the people who get stopped for drunk driving. They have all the money that anyone could want could want and no need to drive a car since they can afford a limo and a driver but yet they go out drinking ad drive their luxury cars home. If you can'r depend on people who you assume have the intelligence not to drive when drunk and who have the means to get home by any method other than driving but they still choose to drive. I can't blame the lawmakers for throwing up their arms and saying f you if that's what you think are going to do then this is what we are going to do. What do you do to male everyone happy and keep the roads safe. it's impossible. It is something we have to do as individuals and only then can all our rights be available to us. We can't have individual rules for each and everyone of us so we have to put up with the rules that impede on some of our rights
You can't think of impaired driving as a driving infraction. It falls under criminal law and for years arrested people they are fingerprinted and that can be used against them, in case of a firearm their body is checked for evidence of firing a gun. If someone suspected of being impaired and is asked to do a do sobriety I don't see anything wrong with that and I don't know of any better way of trying to get impaired people off the roads. If that person refuses the roadside sobriety test then what options to the police have to take that person off the road. If the police let that suspected person to continue driving because that person refused a sobriety test and that impaired person kills a member of your family what opinion of the police would you have then. The police would leave themselves open to major lawsuits if they had reasonable knowledge they stopped an impaired driver but since that person refused a sobriety test the police let him/her continue on their way.
These are fair points. I would still rather see default 6 months suspended or you get towed by default than 'you are coming to the hospital with us' at 3am. Which is really the lesser of two evils? Evil is like a fire, you give an evil person an inch and they take a mile, you give them a mile they'll take the whole world - and we'll still fight wars. I know Satan dresses to impress and would not be caught standing outside as a policeman at a roadblock in the middle of the night. I don't see law enforcement as 'the bad guys' in this situation. Yet somehow I don't see them as the angels some of you would like to see them as in this situation either. I see manipulation of minds from behind the scenes. If we arrive at the point of the outcome of giving ground on our rights to the NHTSA these type of checkpoints will suddenly be able to pass the muster of all 50 states and become commonplace.
And BTW, I'm not a 'bad guy' either but if a person hits the fam or me txt while driving or drunk, I'm not a detective nor a police man so I don't have to prove a damn thing. I'm going in like its a baseball game and knocking my ball straight out of the park. I don't drive drunk but I'm not a law abiding citizen either. I wish a n* would smash into me drunk. Better me than some minivan full of young kids. I like the Chicago Way better than the Obama way. We could film Death Wish 6 with no Charles Bronson this time if someone smashes into me its going down lol
And BTW, I'm not a 'bad guy' either but if a person hits the fam or me txt while driving or drunk, I'm not a detective nor a police man so I don't have to prove a damn thing. I'm going in like its a baseball game and knocking my ball straight out of the park. I don't drive drunk but I'm not a law abiding citizen either. I wish a n* would smash into me drunk. Better me than some minivan full of young kids. I like the Chicago Way better than the Obama way. We could film Death Wish 6 with no Charles Bronson this time if someone smashes into me its going down lol
Pennsylvania has an "implied consent" law. If an officer stops you and you refuse any impairment test, field sobriety, breath test or blood test you are automatically going to be charged with a DUI and your operating privilege will be suspended for a year. We also have random sobriety checkpoints usually around major drinking holidays. I don't know when the implied consent law started but I know its been around since 1999 and the sobriety checkpoints have been around a lot longer.
The sobriety checkpoints are usually around 2 AM when the bars close so not too many people on their way to work are inconvenienced.
In PA you will first get a field sobriety test if an officer thinks you are impaired, fail that and you will be arrested on suspicion of DUI then you must submit to the blood alcohol test. But if you refuse you may end up with a harsher sentence than if you consent. If you are impaired then consent and make your own life easier. Some people are their own worse enemies though.
In 22 years of driving in Pennsylvania and a few hundred thousand miles I've only ever gone through 1 sobriety checkpoint....But judging by the numbers printed in the local paper after these sobriety checkpoints they are effective
You are confusing responsible implementation of a law with a ghastly implementation of ethnic cleansing.
The sobriety checkpoints are usually around 2 AM when the bars close so not too many people on their way to work are inconvenienced.
In PA you will first get a field sobriety test if an officer thinks you are impaired, fail that and you will be arrested on suspicion of DUI then you must submit to the blood alcohol test. But if you refuse you may end up with a harsher sentence than if you consent. If you are impaired then consent and make your own life easier. Some people are their own worse enemies though.
In 22 years of driving in Pennsylvania and a few hundred thousand miles I've only ever gone through 1 sobriety checkpoint....But judging by the numbers printed in the local paper after these sobriety checkpoints they are effective
You are confusing responsible implementation of a law with a ghastly implementation of ethnic cleansing.
We have implied consent in Oregon too. If you refuse a test you aren't technically guilty of DUI but you do lose your license for a year. I'm not against a punishment for convicted drunk driving. Where I have a problem is random stops where you are compelled to prove your innocence of a crime WITHOUT PROBABLE CAUSE. If a cop pulls a driver over for a traffic infraction such as speeding, careless/reckless driving, failure to maintain lane, etc. and during the interaction with the driver it is determined that a field sobriety test is warranted, only after the failure of those tests should a breath/blood test be requested. Would it be okay for a store security guard to randomly demand a strip search to prove you didn't shoplift anything? No. What if you were pulled over and an officer demanded your phone to prove you weren't texting and driving?
And while we're on the subject, A DUI has a much broader definition than most people realize. For instance, you can be convicted of DUI for simply admitting to an officer that you have taken ANY medication that has a drowsiness warning on the back. That's right, you can get a DUI for taking an Advil PM, whether it is affecting your ability to drive or not. Here's another example; In Washington state (10 miles from me) it is legal for adults to purchase and ingest marijuana. The legal DUI limit is 5 nanograms. You could smoke a joint on Friday night and still have 5 nanograms in your system the next Thursday. Is that person impaired? No. But they can be arrested for DUI and will have to go through the time/trouble/expense to convince a judge or jury that they were not "under the influence". But it gets better. If you are at a bar drinking and decide to call a cab but decide to grab a jacket out of your trunk, the moment you insert your key into the lock you can be arrested for DUI.
I don't think most laws like this were created with a malicious intent, but when they start to step on my constitutional rights I get very concerned. I think the police in the US have way too much leeway. They are trained to persuade us to incriminate ourselves. Have you ever been pulled over for speeding and been asked "if you've had anything to drink tonight?" They have no reason to ask that but they still do on the off chance you'll just blurt out that you had a beer. What we need to remember is that we have the same rights before and after we are under arrest and I've found that it has always been in my best interest to remain silent. It's their job to prove a crime was committed. I refuse to help. Protect and serve is a faded and forgotten concept.
And while we're on the subject, A DUI has a much broader definition than most people realize. For instance, you can be convicted of DUI for simply admitting to an officer that you have taken ANY medication that has a drowsiness warning on the back. That's right, you can get a DUI for taking an Advil PM, whether it is affecting your ability to drive or not. Here's another example; In Washington state (10 miles from me) it is legal for adults to purchase and ingest marijuana. The legal DUI limit is 5 nanograms. You could smoke a joint on Friday night and still have 5 nanograms in your system the next Thursday. Is that person impaired? No. But they can be arrested for DUI and will have to go through the time/trouble/expense to convince a judge or jury that they were not "under the influence". But it gets better. If you are at a bar drinking and decide to call a cab but decide to grab a jacket out of your trunk, the moment you insert your key into the lock you can be arrested for DUI.
I don't think most laws like this were created with a malicious intent, but when they start to step on my constitutional rights I get very concerned. I think the police in the US have way too much leeway. They are trained to persuade us to incriminate ourselves. Have you ever been pulled over for speeding and been asked "if you've had anything to drink tonight?" They have no reason to ask that but they still do on the off chance you'll just blurt out that you had a beer. What we need to remember is that we have the same rights before and after we are under arrest and I've found that it has always been in my best interest to remain silent. It's their job to prove a crime was committed. I refuse to help. Protect and serve is a faded and forgotten concept.
Clone TIE Pilot said:Lastly you can't compare the UK with the US. The US has laws meant to limit our government's power while protecting basic rights that even many modern countries do not protect. These laws protect our rights from the government, that may sound silly but it is quite serious and why our founding fathers after kicking the Brits out were so concerned to not let oppression happen again here. Over in the UK, people are subjects, they don't have the rights that US citizens take for granted. The UK law system is much more oppressive and draconian than in the US, like having no rights to bare arms and Judges are allowed to make up crimes on the spot to charge people of, but the subjects of UK don't seem to mind which echos what Ben said.
Sorry Rodger, you are not a citizen of the free world, you are a subject and were not born with the same rights that me and my fellow citizens of the US were born with. As such I understand why you can not understand why some of us are upset over having our rights that are supposed to be protected from our government being infringed upon. You never had such freedom or responsibility to have first hand knowledge of it, you have had your government run your life for you which is the life of a subject. However you made appreciate being an American even more, glad I was never brainwashed like that.
Strange that in the UK you are permitted to do anything that is not prohibited by law.
We are in the fortunate position of having a justice system completely independent of the government, no judge has top worry about their position depending on toeing the correct political line.
I think you should do some research about how various constitutions across the world function before deciding that anyone might not be a part of the "Free World". Nobody is stopping me writing this post.
But bet your bottom dollar that if you or me or any citizen of a modern nation were to mention certain trigger words implying a terrorism connection, racial hatred or peadophilia the authorities will be paying close attention to us.
I don't think we have a RIGHT to plant bombs, prey upon children or any number of clearly unacceptable practices so long as we accept the consequences.
Roger.
for some reason the direction this thread has taken reminded me of this... see if you can figure out why
http://youtu.be/Rpn0vh2Rj0Y?t=3m (embedding disabled dammit)
[youtube]Rpn0vh2Rj0Y[/youtube] skip forward to about 3:00 or so
http://youtu.be/Rpn0vh2Rj0Y?t=3m (embedding disabled dammit)
[youtube]Rpn0vh2Rj0Y[/youtube] skip forward to about 3:00 or so
I don't think we should be attacking Canadians and Englishmen for wanting us to ditch our constitution and sort of 'join the rest of us [them*]' in sacrificing some of our freedoms for the practicality of saving lives not fully understanding the concepts of freedom they can't possibly understand. I'm starting to wonder if my position on this topic actually is wrong because I'm surprised at the lack of enthusiasm from my fellow americans to speak up for constitutional / motoring rights we have enjoyed for the better part of this century. It makes me suspect that the majority of my fellow forum users occasionally do choose to dabble in driving drunk. Oh cruel fate; how ironic it will be when they are caught by the same law they refused to speak up against and lose cars wives and jobs as a result of their inaction to defend the constitutional ammendments their father's wrote.
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