What are your thoughts on DUI check point

.357 Magnum wrote: I would be willing to bet bunkered is that drunk driver you see hugging the yellow line, swerving far out of the way of things on the side of the road and what not.

For one thing there are no yellow lines on dirt roads.

But since the few times I have driven on the main roads drunk I've never been pulled over (and not for a lack of seeing cops, I've even had one behind me for a couple miles), I'm assuming I'm not that guy.

As stated previously, I guarantee you that you wouldn't even think I'd had a single beer if you were in my car.

Then again, I drive around high as hell all the time, so maybe I'm just used to it and always swerve all over the place. But if that's the case, I'm the luckiest mo alive since I've never received a traffic ticket. Ever.

Bunkered wrote: OK... So? Hey everybody, Brihard thinks I'm a dumbass; I'm gonna go cry now. Good thing I don't drive drunk where cops are going to see me. I think it's an individual thing. No one should ever drive drunk. However, some people are capable of it, which is what I'm trying to say. Everyone here seems to think that if you have 1 beer and get in a car, it's auto-death for you and anyone else you happen to pass on the road. And that's just plain not true.

Well done trying to put words in my mouth. Not the dumbass part, but the auto-death thing. Not that I expect you to care what my personal opinion is- anyone who gets distressed about that on the internet has bigger issues anyway. I'd just hope that you'd see some sense.

Driving is already a risky enough proposition for everyone on the roads. So many things could go wrong. To flagrantly disregard the possible risk to others by getting behind the wheel drunk is horrendously selfish and irresponsible. I don't particularly care if you risk your own life- you're a name on the internet to me. But there are so many preventable tragedies in which someone completely innocent is harmed by a drunk driver. To willingly do something that increases that risk in any way is reprehensible. If you keep it up, I hope that some day it bites you in the ass hard enough that you learn from it without you or anyone else getting hurt. I've seen all the harm just this week from my buddy getting a DUI, and that's minor in the grand scheme of things- only financial and legal trouble. To voluntarily subject yourself or others to that and worse is just idiotic, regardless of how much of a self-righteous internet huff you work yourself into.

This thread makes it apparent that MADD has done an excellent job of stigmatizing drunk driving.

While talking to a CJ major, I decided to take the opportunity to ask more about field sobriety testing. The one test you absolutely cannot pass if you are impaired is the pen-light test where you are asked to follow the tip of a pen with an LED light with your eyes. As you reach the edges of your vision, your eye will involuntarily twitch. For me, as little as three lite beers will cause this to happen. Granted, this can theoretically impair one's ability to track a moving object on the extreme edges of one's peripheral vision. However, we let people drive who couldn't pass a field sobriety test stone sold sober. My Grandfather has glocoma(sp) and barely has the peripheral vision to drive at night. I'd be willing to wager that my reflexes and vision would exceed his even if I were close to .08 BAC.

Say I go to a thanksgiving dinner and have two Sammy A's for desert and am not planning on driving home. If we eat late or BS and lose track of time(as we commonly do) they'd have to drive home in the dark. I could drive them and do a better job, and would probably get waved through a traffic stop if I were doing so. However, in the off chance that I had to do the roadside olympics(no doubt this would be done so as to appear to be fair to the others who were stopped) and got the pen-light test I'd be up sewage creek sans paddle.

While as a general rule I avoid talking on the phone while driving, I may do so in an area with little traffic and good visibility on either side of the road during the school day when no retarded kiddies are chasing balls into the road. People drive impaired in all sorts of ways all the time. While the dragnet approach will certainly serve as a public spectacle and may act as a deterrent, radio and TV ads warning of increased police presence on the roads should have the same effect in addition to allocating resources in such a way as to target people driving dangerously. I'd rather get the actual medicine than the placebo.

As for carl's earlier comments as to being Canadian and therefore caring more about life, Canada is statistically more full of drunks than the US, and I doubt that you can call a cab from every bar in the Yukon. In fact, you should have even more strict drunk-driving laws than the US since instead of killing an environmentally destructive human being you might seriously injure or kill an endangered bear or something.

rednekk98 wrote: This thread makes it apparent that MADD has done an excellent job of stigmatizing drunk driving. While talking to a CJ major, I decided to take the opportunity to ask more about field sobriety testing. The one test you absolutely cannot pass if you are impaired is the pen-light test where you are asked to follow the tip of a pen with an LED light with your eyes. As you reach the edges of your vision, your eye will involuntarily twitch. For me, as little as three lite beers will cause this to happen. Granted, this can theoretically impair one's ability to track a moving object on the extreme edges of one's peripheral vision. However, we let people drive who couldn't pass a field sobriety test stone sold sober. My Grandfather has glocoma(sp) and barely has the peripheral vision to drive at night. I'd be willing to wager that my reflexes and vision would exceed his even if I were close to .08 BAC. Say I go to a thanksgiving dinner and have two Sammy A's for desert and am not planning on driving home. If we eat late or BS and lose track of time(as we commonly do) they'd have to drive home in the dark. I could drive them and do a better job, and would probably get waved through a traffic stop if I were doing so. However, in the off chance that I had to do the roadside olympics(no doubt this would be done so as to appear to be fair to the others who were stopped) and got the pen-light test I'd be up sewage creek sans paddle. While as a general rule I avoid talking on the phone while driving, I may do so in an area with little traffic and good visibility on either side of the road during the school day when no retarded kiddies are chasing balls into the road. People drive impaired in all sorts of ways all the time. While the dragnet approach will certainly serve as a public spectacle and may act as a deterrent, radio and TV ads warning of increased police presence on the roads should have the same effect in addition to allocating resources in such a way as to target people driving dangerously. I'd rather get the actual medicine than the placebo. As for carl's earlier comments as to being Canadian and therefore caring more about life, Canada is statistically more full of drunks than the US, and I doubt that you can call a cab from every bar in the Yukon. In fact, you should have even more strict drunk-driving laws than the US since instead of killing an environmentally destructive human being you might seriously injure or kill an endangered bear or something.

You've opened several other cans of worms with this one, and have made some good points, but you seem to be arguing that two wrongs make a right, or at least make the wrongs somehow lesser. They don't.

Frankly I'd be perfectly fine with the limits being even tighter. I personally will not drive if I've had any alcohol at all; that way I can't try to rationalize or justify getting behind the wheel. I don't care if one jurisdiction has higher rates than another; that could be explained by any number of statistical or procedural reasons. It's all wrong in my book, and if that bothers people so be it.

It's basic self discipline, really. I have no tolerance whatsoever for drunk drivers- they've crapped in their own bed; they can lie in it.

Well, the general rule is about 1 hour per drink. So you aren't doin much.

.357 Magnum wrote: As far a two sams, just wait a couple hours before driving. And if you're at a party just crash there overnight.

Usually I will wait some time before driving, if circumstances permit. However, life occasionally intervenes. I've been at parties and got hammered with the expectation of being able to crash there in peace, and having been up for 40 hours and needing to work in the morning decide call it an early night and pass out in my car. I've then been screwed with to the point that my vehicle and person has been endangered by belligerent tards with lawyer daddies who'll get them out of whatever trouble they get into. In the interest of preserving my vehicle and avoiding having to bust kneecaps with a tire iron since god know's what's going to happen to me if I get into close combat with one of these morons and lose, I'd like to be able to drive 1/4 mile up the back road with no traffic, pull over and sleep it off without fear of prosecution.

And what happens when you get kicked out of a party?

I've been kicked out of two parties.
One was for banging on this girl's parents bed (after her drunk ass gave us permission to), and the other for turning off the lights trying to go to sleep.
There are circumstances during which it is necessary to drive drunk, might as well have some practice beforehand I guess.

I definately understand where people are coming from with the zero tolerance policy to drunk driving, but it seems that it is more fueled by emotion and stigmatisms from DARE and MADD.
It terrifies me to think that some guy might be driving around with a .35 not paying attention to the road. But I would not go so far as to say that anyone who's had a beer or two is a serious public risk. Some people maybe, but to lump all into one category is incorrect.
There's not a chance in hell I'll get in a few people's cars if they've even had a single drink, because they're bad drivers anyways. But if I'm sober enough to pass the field-sobriety tests, I see no reason not to drive.

Not everyone I know.
And not just me individually. I believe there are people who can function just fine with alcohol in their system, it's just not the majority of people.

I take issue with absolutes, which is what you're using.
All and none are two key words that automatically prove you an idiot (not you personally). There are always exceptions to the general rule, and people just don't seem to understand that.
"All drunk drivers are dangerous," is an example.
"No one can safely operate a vehicle with alcohol in their system," is another.

The problem with those is that anytime you use an absolute, someone already has or will prove you wrong.

Refer to sig for results of drunk driving...



edit: yes drunk driving does make pie rule.

Edited by battlefreak - 07 December 2007 at 9:43pm

rednekk98 wrote: As for carl's earlier comments as to being Canadian and therefore caring more about life, Canada is statistically more full of drunks than the US, and I doubt that you can call a cab from every bar in the Yukon. In fact, you should have even more strict drunk-driving laws than the US since instead of killing an environmentally destructive human being you might seriously injure or kill an endangered bear or something.

First thing, it was a joke.

Secondly, terrible, ignorant stereotype. Most of our population lives in major cities in southern Canada where it is easy to find a cab. That's almost as bad as when styro asked me if it was night for half a year where I lived.

I have never seen a wild bear in Canada. I have in the US though.