Field sobriety test

[johnson0317]

That's a straw man, and you know it. "Guess he shouldn't have driven on the same road as the drunk" - those are essentially the words you're putting in my mouth, but I never said them. None of us is suggesting that we blame the victim of a drunk driving accident or give the drunk a pass. If a guy's swerving all over the road, speeding, or whatever, the pull him over and write him up. Otherwise leave him alone.

No, it is not a straw man argument. Take it from someone who has been a nurse for 25 years, and in the ER for 17 of those years. Once the man starts to swerve, weave, change lanes...then it is too late unless he politely crashes his car into the nearest tree or concrete pillar. If he is out there driving while intoxicated, he is a lethal weapon awaiting discharge. The problem with your no harm, no foul stance is that sooner or later this fool of a man is going to kill someone...maybe someone in your family. Then you are going to go to court and sue him, and every cop within 50 miles for letting him on the road.

I am tired of these bozos being treated like victim when they are nothing but criminals. I have seen way too many mangled bodies in the ER to buy this. It really, really is no different than someone firing into the air on New Years eve, in a crowded area, and killing someone. I guess, by your yardstick, it would be ok as long as they were drunk while they were shooting the gun?

RJ

[The Annoyed Man]

Otherwise leave him alone.

Even though drunk driving is willfully reckless behavior? I'm with gigag on this one. I spent five years dealing in an ER setting with the human wreckage caused by drunk drivers. They cause traffic fatalities at a far higher rate than sober drivers. So when a drunk gets in his car and drives it, he or she has made the decision to unnecessarily put the lives of other drivers on the road at risk, for completely indefensible reasons. According to your line of reasoning, if that same drunk waves a loaded gun around in a room full of people, he should not be arrested for public endangerment until after he accidentally pulls the trigger and kills someone. That's just irresponsible. And that is not a straw man argument. It is merely the logical extension of your line of reasoning.

With all due respect, I just have to strongly disagree with you.

[The Annoyed Man]

That's a straw man, and you know it. "Guess he shouldn't have driven on the same road as the drunk" - those are essentially the words you're putting in my mouth, but I never said them. None of us is suggesting that we blame the victim of a drunk driving accident or give the drunk a pass. If a guy's swerving all over the road, speeding, or whatever, the pull him over and write him up. Otherwise leave him alone.

What about the drunk who isn't swerving, but whose reaction times are so slow that he fails the hit the brakes in time before rear ending someone at a stoplight? Or the drunk who drives straight......right through a stop sign and kills your kid?

Both would have been utterly preventable if they had been picked up at a DWI checkpoint by a cop who caught a whiff of the drunk's breath and decided to administer a FSR. I guess the loss of those lives would have been worth it if that is the price of preserving a judgmentally impaired driver's right to takes risks with MY life.

[G.A. Heath]

We have a county commissioner fighting for his job, and to stay out of jail. He is a repeat offender and his most recent violation involved a vehicle accident in which I am told he attempted to flee. He was unable to flee as his vehicle could only go in circles after the damage it sustained. In 2004 (In the town where I work, same county) we had a terrible accident involving an intoxicated driver who never even saw the vehicle she hit until after the accident. Two adults in the other vehicle were unable to attend the funeral of their passengers. The passengers were their three children: Rachel (Age 10 years), Madelyn (Age 6 years), Yates (Age 1 month).

Did our current DWI laws prevent these accidents? The answer is no, but they have prevented other folks who wish to be law abiding citizens from causing other accidents. In addition to that they have helped punish the offenders in many cases and will help punish the offenders in current/future cases as well. An accident would have been prevented if our county commissioner had been punished to the full extent of the law in an earlier DWI case. If you choose to do something that can result in serious injury or death to someone else then you are liable for your actions. Operating a motor vehicle while impaired is foolish at best, and is often deadly. Does someone have the right to drive while intoxicated? Before anyone answers that question let me leave you with a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."

[gigag04]

Regarding stiffer penalties...read intoxication manslaughter.

And for homework - there is technically a way to meet the elements of murder if you kill someone while driving drunk. You have to read the PC but it's not too hard.

[OldCurlyWolf]

a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."

[PappaGun]

I have not read all the posts in this thread.
Sorry if some or all of this has already been said.

Texas is light years behind by not having DWI check points.
Yes it's inconvenient, but it is a huge deterent.
There's even an App for that. (Posting locations)

If you have lived in just about any other state, you have experienced them.
You get through them pretty quickly as they are at times of the night (usually) and areas of town when traffic is light but the concentration of intoxicated drivers is higher.

As time passes, the number of drivers caught tends to decrease, many times zero, as they begin to be taken seriously.

The last state I lived in was infamous for its DWI problem and did not really get a handle on it until they began a serious anti-DWI campaign of which one part was DWI check points. Texas' problem is just as severe.

Having said all this, I lived there for 30 years and NEVER hit one as I tend not to be out at the wee hours or in those parts of town.

One alternative, practiced in Washington state is the rolling road block. Checkpoints were illegal according to some friends
who live there. So what they do is line up police cars side by side, say three wide on a three lane road and come slowly to a stop. Then they get out and check the cars behind them. This was determind to be non-discriminitory unlike their check points.

This is a whole lot more inconvenient than a check point, but a solution thrust upon residents of WA because of the resistance over checkpoints. Be careful what you wish for kind of thing.

I know this drifts from the OP's question. Just wanted to add my two cents to an already drifting thread.

[steveincowtown]

I am not willing to give up my 4A rights, no matter whether is comes in the form of sweet mothers pushing illegal searches or LEO's showing up to my door and asking to come in and check things out. No matter what face you put on it, it is wrong. Lets enforce the laws we have, instead of creating new ones.

[gigag04]

I am not willing to give up my 4A rights, no matter whether is comes in the form of sweet mothers pushing illegal searches or LEO's showing up to my door and asking to come in and check things out. No matter what face you put on it, it is wrong. Lets enforce the laws we have, instead of creating new ones.

What exactly is this in response to? Slightly confused...

[steveincowtown]

I am not willing to give up my 4A rights, no matter whether is comes in the form of sweet mothers pushing illegal searches or LEO's showing up to my door and asking to come in and check things out. No matter what face you put on it, it is wrong. Lets enforce the laws we have, instead of creating new ones.

What exactly is this in response to? Slightly confused...

Some folks (in this thread and elsewhere) claim that random "inspections" of those traveling by car would be for the better good. I don't agree with this and feel like stopping someone on the road, for no reason, without probable cause is not OK.

Whether those wanting to push stops/searches/etc. are sweet mothers (MADD) or LEO's randomly showing up and wanting to inspect my house (think Germany) I want nothing to do with either.

[PUCKER]

I think what steveincowtown might be trying to say is illustrated quite well with the below (apologies if this is incorrect).

[steveincowtown]

Exactly and thanks.

[gigag04]

Ah ok. I had no idea what it was referencing.

[srothstein]

Lately, I have been questioning some of the things I have believed in the past, thanks to my training. The further I get into my academic program, the more the idea of critical thinking is pushed and the less we can get away with saying we know things without proof.

Many years ago, I thought that DWI checkpoints might be a good thing, even if they were borderline violations of the Fourth Amendment. I say borderline because the Fourth does not prohibit all searches, or even all searches without warrants, just unreasonable ones. The SCOTUS has ruled that checkpoints for some things like driver's licenses, are illegal but for those things that are directly safety related, such as DWI, they are okay if there is a state law governing the program.

But now, I have to ask if they really are as effective as people claim. Where is the proof of this? Are there any studies testing this theory to show that it is effective at reducing the amount of DWI? Not only do we want to see the DWI arrest rate increase, but we need to see an actual decrease in DWI on the road. From Pappagun's observation, there is an increase in arrests, that is then followed by a decrease in arrests. Is the decrease due to a deterrent effect where there are fewer drunks on the road? Or is it due to the drunks getting to know the program and finding other roads to go home on?

It strikes me that there are enough states that allow checkpoints that we should be able to study this and find out. Off the top of my head, I would say that using the accident rate where alcohol is involved might be a good indicator of the actual DWI rate. If I were setting up the study and doing the research, I might find a better indicator than that.

But I could never support the intrusion on our rights without some evidence that this is truly effective and makes us safer. The program would also need to be designed, in law, to minimize the intrusion on our rights. But a minimal intrusion on our rights for a proven effective program might just be a reasonable search or seizure.

[PappaGun]

...But now, I have to ask if they really are as effective as people claim. Where is the proof of this? Are there any studies testing this theory to show that it is effective at reducing the amount of DWI? Not only do we want to see the DWI arrest rate increase, but we need to see an actual decrease in DWI on the road. From Pappagun's observation, there is an increase in arrests, that is then followed by a decrease in arrests. Is the decrease due to a deterrent effect where there are fewer drunks on the road? Or is it due to the drunks getting to know the program and finding other roads to go home on?

All good questions Steve.
DWI is one of the most studied issues as huge amounts of money are spent on prevention.

Here is one link with some information on one of your questions:
http://www.aaaduijusticelink.com/issues ... heckpoints" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and a quote from the webpage:

"A systematic review of 15 studies conducted for The Community Guide to Preventive Services concluded that strong evidence exists for the effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints in decreasing the incidence of DUI (CDC, 2002). These checkpoints were found to decrease fatal crashes between 20% and 26%, and property damage collisions by an average of 24% (Elder et al, 2002). While sobriety checkpoints have been shown as effective, one study found that only 38% of drivers with a BAC of 0.08 or above were detected during a routine sobriety checkpoint (Wells, 1997), indicating the challenges law enforcement have in consistently detecting hardcore and other drunk drivers."

Here is another link to a DOT web page with statistics. Go to the bottom of the page to the state by state stats.
Texas is one of the few states with a 40% or higher alchohol impaired cause of vehicle fatalities.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811363.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I used to be uncomfortable with checkpoints and to some degree I still am. My current thoughts are that they are one tool in the tool box that can be used effectively or abused. As long as management controls the program effectively, I am for them.

Anecdotally, I have a friend with a brother who is an alchoholic. After being arrested for his fourth DWI and all at check points, he now takes a cab when he drinks. His behavior has been modified before he killed some body. He drove drunk thousands of times and was only caught 4 times. Sadly, some people never learn, so there are limits to everything.