Legal advice needed: D.U.I. (NSR)

[bad_roo]

If I was at the sharp end like LAN, I daresay I'd feel exactly the same.

[natty dread]

It's not your message, it's your delivery.

Eggzackly.

[Duker]

Just got a ticket this week from some mormon utah nazi for not wearing a seatbelt.

hah. I can imagine you asking the cop about his religous affiliation.

[ScottG]

0.08 is bullshit
0.10 worked just fine before the feds witheld federal highway funds to force all the states to go lower.
Just like they did to get the drinking age raised to 21
Just like they did to get the speed limit to 55 (which thank god has been raised again).

Do you high and mighty folks know how many lives have been lost as a result of going back to 65 or god forbid 75 mph?? Thousands upon thousands of lives.

Whats next NERF CARS???

I'm sorry for those who have lost friends and loved ones, but .08 is not the problem. Most nasty drunk crashes are well over 0.10, and many are over 0.20

BTW I hope you high and mighty folks never break the speed limit, either. Speed kills.
Oh, and since some of you might ski, there is this thing called "too fast for conditions" where if its snowing, you better not even go the speed limit, cause you are being dangerous to others.
Matter of fact, we need another law requiring snow tires in winter, cause that would save more lives.
Oh, and since .08 is more like distracted driving - NO MORE CELL PHONE DRIVING, NO MORE EATING AND DRIVING AND NO MORE DRINKING AND DRIVING - NOT EVEN COFFEE!

[G]

Actually, I think NERF cars would be frickin awesome! I'd love one of those.
Come to think of it, I treat my current car like it's nerf. I should probably stop that.

As for phone conversations and driving, it's my opinoin that that's pretty stupid, too.

And it is illegal in some places.

[yentna]

Driving is not a right, it's a privilege. That can be taken away if abused, and drinking at all before driving is an abuse.

(BTW, my father wrecked his Bronco, rolling it over anywhere from 6 to 8 times, thankfully only harming himself. He "only" blew a 0.08, but he was't driving "perfectly normal." Maybe some people can drive safely at that level, but that doesn't mean everyone can.)

[bad_roo]

0.08 is bullshit
0.10 worked just fine before the feds witheld federal highway funds to force all the states to go lower.
Just like they did to get the drinking age raised to 21
Just like they did to get the speed limit to 55 (which thank god has been raised again).

Do you high and mighty folks know how many lives have been lost as a result of going back to 65 or god forbid 75 mph?? Thousands upon thousands of lives.

Whats next NERF CARS???

I'm sorry for those who have lost friends and loved ones, but .08 is not the problem. Most nasty drunk crashes are well over 0.10, and many are over 0.20

BTW I hope you high and mighty folks never break the speed limit, either. Speed kills.
Oh, and since some of you might ski, there is this thing called "too fast for conditions" where if its snowing, you better not even go the speed limit, cause you are being dangerous to others.
Matter of fact, we need another law requiring snow tires in winter, cause that would save more lives.
Oh, and since .08 is more like distracted driving - NO MORE CELL PHONE DRIVING, NO MORE EATING AND DRIVING AND NO MORE DRINKING AND DRIVING - NOT EVEN COFFEE!

This post makes no sense. You celebrate the raising of the speed limits and then proceed to harp on about how speed kills. There have been any number of investigations into how driving at .08 affects judgement but you seem to know better. Eating and drinking while driving is usually pretty dumb. People get prosecuted over here for eating at the wheel. Answering your cell phone while driving is also a prosecutable offence.

I'm not saying I never exceed the speed limit, but the only time I ever got caught I just shrugged and reckoned it was a fair cop. I didn't tell the police their speed limit was bullshit.

STOP VHINING!

[summit]

0.08 is bullshit
0.10 worked just fine before the feds witheld federal highway funds to force all the states to go lower.
Just like they did to get the drinking age raised to 21
Just like they did to get the speed limit to 55 (which thank god has been raised again).

Do you high and mighty folks know how many lives have been lost as a result of going back to 65 or god forbid 75 mph?? Thousands upon thousands of lives.

Whats next NERF CARS???

I'm sorry for those who have lost friends and loved ones, but .08 is not the problem. Most nasty drunk crashes are well over 0.10, and many are over 0.20

BTW I hope you high and mighty folks never break the speed limit, either. Speed kills.

Yes its dumb how the feds forced those laws out, especially drinking age (immoral to send people to die but deny them other simple freedoms). I hate potheads but I don't think pot should be illegal.


But get your facts straight.

The 55 speed limit was not enacted for safety. It was for fuel economy during the oil embargo. It is irrelevant now.

Speed kills huh? Idiot.

Actually its the forces during the rapid decelleration... such as you only need 15mph to 0 skull vs brick wall to kill you.

First, drugs (primarily pot and cocaine) and alchohol (about 49%) are behind 70% or so of fatal crashes. What percent is due to speeding?

Second, NHTSA studies show that when speed limits are raised, accidents go down, when they are lowered, accidents go up.

Reason? Almost everyone speeds. Some people stick to posted limits developed with semis in mind. This causes others to have to perform more dangerous maneuvers to pass, when the limit goes up and down, only the small percent of sticklers follow the change. If the limit goes up, speeders rarely speed more and therefor are less inclined to pass the sticklers, therefor less accidents.

Human nature is undeniable.

[ScottG]

This post makes no sense. You celebrate the raising of the speed limits and then proceed to harp on about how speed kills.

Duhhh, the harping about speed kills is SARCSM intended to show the inconsistency of those so obsessively concerned about any vehicle accident where the driver had one or two drinks (.08 or .09) and was barely impaired, versus the many more that have been killed by speeding (particularly through the snow, rushing to go skiing).

[ScottG]

Yes its dumb how the feds forced those laws out, especially drinking age (immoral to send people to die but deny them other simple freedoms). I hate potheads but I don't think pot should be illegal.


But get your facts straight.

The 55 speed limit was not enacted for safety. It was for fuel economy during the oil embargo. It is irrelevant now.

Speed kills huh? Idiot.

Actually its the forces during the rapid decelleration... such as you only need 15mph to 0 skull vs brick wall to kill you.

First, drugs (primarily pot and cocaine) and alchohol (about 49%) are behind 70% or so of fatal crashes. What percent is due to speeding?

Second, NHTSA studies show that when speed limits are raised, accidents go down, when they are lowered, accidents go up.

Reason? Almost everyone speeds. Some people stick to posted limits developed with semis in mind. This causes others to have to perform more dangerous maneuvers to pass, when the limit goes up and down, only the small percent of sticklers follow the change. If the limit goes up, speeders rarely speed more and therefor are less inclined to pass the sticklers, therefor less accidents.

Human nature is undeniable.

OK, where do I begin.
First, I am old enough to know why 55 was enacted - my point was about the folks that fought the return to 75 once the gas crunch was over.

Second, yes, speed kills:
Lets try some data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), speeding is one of the most prevalent reported factors associated with crashes. Speeding is a factor in 31 percent of all fatal crashes, killing an average of 1,000 Americans every month. In 2002, more than 13,000 people died in speed-related crashes. NHTSA estimates the economic cost to society of speed-related crashes to be more than $40 billion each year.

Isn't speed variation -- not speeding -- the real problem? No. Although research conducted in the 1950s on two-lane rural roads did indicate that vehicles traveling much faster or much slower than average were more likely to be involved in crashes, this issue is not relevant on today's high-speed highways with controlled access.6 The author of this early study acknowledged that the findings could not be extended to controlled access freeways, but some proponents of higher travel speeds have attempted to do so. Many differences in travel speeds are unavoidable because of the slower speeds of turning or merging vehicles. Many crashes, and nearly half of those resulting in occupant deaths, are single-vehicle impacts in which differences among vehicle speeds play no role or only a very minor one. Finally, the risk of death and severe injury is a direct exponential function of speed, not speed differences.

Congress responded to the oil shortage of 1973 by directing the U.S. Department of Transportation to withhold highway funding from states that did not adopt a maximum speed limit of 55 mph. The National Research Council attributed 4,000 fewer fatalities to the decreased speeds in 1974, compared with 1973, and estimated that returning the speed limit on rural portions of the interstate highway system to pre-1974 levels would result in 500 more fatalities annually, a 20-25 percent increase on these highways

6. Does the speed limit matter? Don't drivers speed anyway? Many drivers tend to drive somewhat faster than posted speed limits, no matter what the limits are. Although people often opt to travel somewhat faster than the posted limit, they do not completely ignore it but choose a speed they perceive as unlikely to result in a ticket. The more important speed-related safety issue on freeways involves the proportion of vehicles traveling at very high speeds, not the proportion violating the speed limit. The Institute's frequent monitoring of free-flowing travel speeds on interstate highways posted at 55 mph and speeds on roads with 65 and 75 mph limits shows that, in general, higher speed limits lead to greater proportions of cars traveling at very high speeds.
For example, in New Mexico, which raised its limits to 65 mph on rural interstates in 1987, the proportion of motorists exceeding 70 mph grew from 5 percent shortly after speed limits were raised to 36 percent in 1993. In 1996 when speed limits were further increased to 75 mph, more than 29 percent of motorists exceeded 75 mph; by 2003, 55 percent of motorists exceeded 75 mph.8 In Maryland, which retained 55 mph limits on rural interstates until 1995, the proportion traveling faster than 70 mph remained virtually unchanged at 7 percent during 1988-93. By 1994, 12-15 percent of cars were exceeding 70. In neighboring Virginia, which switched to 65 mph limits, the percentage exceeding 70 mph went from 8 percent in 1988 to 29 percent by 1992 and 39 percent by 1994

8. What is the effect on fatalities of raising speed limits above 55 mph? Institute studies show that deaths on rural interstates increased between 25 and 30 percent when states began increasing speed limits from 55 mph to 65 mph in 1987. In 1989, about two-thirds of this increase -- 19 percent, or 400 deaths -- was attributed to increased speed, the rest to increased travel.
A 1999 Institute study of the effects of the 1995 repeal of the national maximum speed limit indicates this trend continues. Researchers compared the numbers of motor vehicle occupant deaths in 24 states that raised speed limits during late 1995 and 1996 with corresponding fatality counts in the 6 years before the speed limits were changed, as well as fatality counts from 7 states that didn't change speed limits. The Institute estimates a 15 percent increase in fatalities on interstates and freeways.
A separate study was conducted by researchers at the Land Transport Safety Authority of New Zealand to evaluate effects of increasing speed limits from 65 mph to either 70 or 75 mph. States that increased speed limits to 75 mph experienced 38 percent more deaths per million vehicle miles than expected, based on deaths in the states that didn't change their speed limits -- an estimated 780 more deaths. States that increased speed limits to 70 mph experienced a 35 percent increase, resulting in approximately 1,100 more deaths.

As for alcohol, I never argued that 0.08 or 0.09 was not slightly impaired, but life is full of risks (like skiing) that should only be regulated by resonableness standards, and not fascistic anti this or that furor.

Oh, and your comment about drugs and alcohol being 70% of all crashes??

8. What proportion of motor vehicle crashes involves alcohol? The most reliable information about alcohol involvement comes from fatal crashes. In 2002, 32 percent of fatally injured drivers had BACs of at least 0.08 percent. Although alcohol may not have been a causal factor in all of the crashes, this statistic is frequently used to measure the change over time in alcohol involvement in fatal crashes.

In 2002, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated that 35 percent of all traffic deaths occurred in crashes in which at least one driver or nonoccupant had a BAC of 0.08 percent or more and that any alcohol was present in 41 percent of all fatal crashes in 2002. Such statistics are sometimes cited as proof that a third to half of all fatal crashes are caused by "drunk driving" and that none of the crashes that involve alcohol would occur if the alcohol were not present. But this is incorrect and misleading because alcohol is only one of several factors that contribute to crashes involving drinking drivers. Furthermore, some fatally injured people in alcohol-related crashes are pedestrians with positive BACs, and these fatalities still would occur even if every driver were sober.

Alcohol involvement is much lower in crashes involving nonfatal injuries, and it is lower still in crashes that do not involve injuries at all. A study conducted during the 1960s estimated that 9 percent of drivers in injury crashes in Grand Rapids, Michigan -- 12 percent in Huntsville, Alabama and in San Diego, according to a study from the 1970s -- had BACs at or above 0.10 percent. Only 5 percent of drivers had BACs that high in noninjury crashes in the Grand Rapids study. During the same time, studies of fatally injured drivers found 40-55 percent had BACs of 0.10 percent or more.

[ScottG]

(BTW, my father wrecked his Bronco, rolling it over anywhere from 6 to 8 times, thankfully only harming himself. He "only" blew a 0.08, but he was't driving "perfectly normal." Maybe some people can drive safely at that level, but that doesn't mean everyone can.)

Sorry about your father, but that brings up the issue of BANNING SUV's

1) these things roll over more easily, so we need to ban them to protect their drivers

2) they are so heavy, they tend to hurt people in mini cars when they hit them, so we need to ban them to protect mini car passengers.

[bad_roo]

Duhhh, the harping about speed kills is SARCSM

I guess you must have been way too SARCSTIC for me.

Can I call you the SARCSTIC AVENGER?

[bad_roo]

Duhhh, the harping about speed kills is SARCSM intended to show the inconsistency of those so obsessively concerned about any vehicle accident where the driver had one or two drinks (.08 or .09) and was barely impaired, versus the many more that have been killed by speeding (particularly through the snow, rushing to go skiing).

By the very stats you posted, 31% of all fatal accidents involve speeding and 32% involve drinking over .08.

[Arnold Babar]

Drinking and driving is dumb for sure. I've been caught twice, and it's fucked my life up plenty. Nobody gets off easy unless you are super connected. You gotta just go through the system and put it behind you. All you sanctimonious preechy mother fuckers, shut up! This kid didn't kill anyone, didn't sever any 18 month olds in half. There are plenty of people out there who have, and many of them weren't drunk. Save your anger for them. If someone drinks and drives, he is not automatically a killer. And if someone smashes into my car and kills my kids and is sober, he or she is not innocent. Everything isn't personal. Life sucks, and there is a lot of bad shit that happens to people, intentionally and by accident. No amount of laws, and no rate of enforcement is going to change that fact. LAN, I could talk about the doctors who amputate the wrong limb, or the nurse who almost fatally fucked up my wife's IV if I didn't catch her mistake. Does that make ALL medical professsionals butchers and hacks? BTW all cops aren't good, and don't always follow the law, and guess what, some are corrupt, and our system is such that if a cop lies or breaks laws, they get away with it. I've seen it first hand. Thats MY perspective and it's no more or less important than any of yours. The preaching and the sanctimony and the know it alls, I just can't take it. The kid messed up, got pulled over for driving (barely) intoxicated (Oh and BTW .08 is NOTHING) and you people portray him as a composite of every drug addicted, suicidal asshole who drove a school bus drunk into your house and killed 4 generations of your family. Jeeeeeeeez

[ScottG]

By the very stats you posted, 31% of all fatal accidents involve speeding and 32% involve drinking over .08.

Actually, that implies that speeding should result in suspension and jail time.
Where is MAS when you need them (Mothers Against Speeding).

Sadly, the stats were not broken down, else I would have tried to use them in my argument that the 0.08 to 0.10 zone is not the real problem. Of that 32% over 0.08, I would guess that most are well over 0.10, in the 0.15 to 0.30 zone where you really have no business driving let alone walking.

Whenever there is a news article about a fatal drunk accident, I always look to the BAC, and they are mostly in the 0.2 range. I have never seen one less than 0.1. Granted, it may happen, but it was probably something else that really caused an accident at less than 0.10, and at most, alcohol was a contributing factor. But, there are many contributing factors like speeding, age, cataracts, poor night vision, weather, sun, fog, coffee, pitted windshields, dogs in the drivers lap, cell phones, radio adjusting, etc., etc.

[homerjay]

99% of ScottG's posts are annoying.

Irrelevant, but my friend got a DUI in Pennsylvania and had he contributed about 10 grand to the Republican Party they would have thrown his case out.

[Mr. Altagirl]

After all these post, I still feel for you man. Learn from your mistake, don't do it again. Listen to some of the good advice posted in this thread and do all the right things for yourself. I gotta tell ya', I'm really starting to hate the "MAN" up in LCC. They seem more out to fuck with people than protect. I help pay for these guys with my property / sales tax and I'm not proud of the job that they do.

Hang in there PRR1.

[flatlander#2]

it's like any motor skill, do it enough times and you get better at it. I've seen alcoholics head down the road driving a pickup pulling a gooseneck trailer filled with cattle in a sodak blizzard and do it better than me stone sober. People drink, people drink too much, people drive cars, people drive cars not well, people get killed in accidents every single day-some by people loaded some by people who have never broken a law in their entire life and did nothing wrong, but their car hit somebody elses and that person died.

Needless to say, get yourself an attorney, talk to him about getting a breath alyzer installed in your car. one that will document that you blow green every ten minutes the car is in operation, use this in your court case, get it reduced down to illegal consumption/possession, get it off your driving record or as a moving violation. Don't let sanctimonious pricks get you down, their glass house has to be expensive to heat. Shit happens, booze is easy to get, cars are easy to drive, it's like sex in college.

[mr_gyptian]

it's like any motor skill, do it enough times and you get better at it. I've seen alcoholics head down the road driving a pickup pulling a gooseneck trailer filled with cattle in a sodak blizzard and do it better than me stone sober. People drink, people drink too much, people drive cars, people drive cars not well, people get killed in accidents every single day-some by people loaded some by people who have never broken a law in their entire life and did nothing wrong, but their car hit somebody elses and that person died.

Needless to say, get yourself an attorney, talk to him about getting a breath alyzer installed in your car. one that will document that you blow green every ten minutes the car is in operation, use this in your court case, get it reduced down to illegal consumption/possession, get it off your driving record or as a moving violation. Don't let sanctimonious pricks get you down, their glass house has to be expensive to heat. Shit happens, booze is easy to get, cars are easy to drive, it's like sex in college.

those breath alyzer's are expensive as hell and don't work well at all in cold weather. I wouldn't do this until the court says so. they are a large sized pain in the ass.

use A-wreck's lawyer.

[ScottG]

99% of ScottG's posts are annoying.

99% of posts professing to be annoyed without any backup information or reasons are annoying.

[Yoda]

Don't talk to cops, don't cop to nothing, and don't ever attempt to represent yourself.

What was the question?

Strong with the force this one is, strooong.

[bad_roo]

Drinking and driving is dumb for sure. I've been caught twice, and it's fucked my life up plenty. Nobody gets off easy unless you are super connected. You gotta just go through the system and put it behind you. All you sanctimonious preechy mother fuckers, shut up! This kid didn't kill anyone, didn't sever any 18 month olds in half. There are plenty of people out there who have, and many of them weren't drunk. Save your anger for them. If someone drinks and drives, he is not automatically a killer. And if someone smashes into my car and kills my kids and is sober, he or she is not innocent. Everything isn't personal. Life sucks, and there is a lot of bad shit that happens to people, intentionally and by accident. No amount of laws, and no rate of enforcement is going to change that fact. LAN, I could talk about the doctors who amputate the wrong limb, or the nurse who almost fatally fucked up my wife's IV if I didn't catch her mistake. Does that make ALL medical professsionals butchers and hacks? BTW all cops aren't good, and don't always follow the law, and guess what, some are corrupt, and our system is such that if a cop lies or breaks laws, they get away with it. I've seen it first hand. Thats MY perspective and it's no more or less important than any of yours. The preaching and the sanctimony and the know it alls, I just can't take it. The kid messed up, got pulled over for driving (barely) intoxicated (Oh and BTW .08 is NOTHING) and you people portray him as a composite of every drug addicted, suicidal asshole who drove a school bus drunk into your house and killed 4 generations of your family. Jeeeeeeeez

I don't think anybody's having a pop at the kid. He fucked up. We all fuck up from time to time.

What is guaranteed to bring out the preaching and sanctimony are posts like YetiMan's.

If you think BAC .08 is nothing, what would you propose it was changed to? I'm guessing that raising the legal limit for drink driving wouldn't be such a great political career move. So you're stuck with what you've got. You don't have to like it - you just have to obey it. Otherwise, well, I guess you're better equipped than most people here to talk about the consequences.

I was absolutely horrified the first time I was in the States and realised the extent of the drink driving culture. It just doesn't seem to be a strong social taboo.

[mr_gyptian]

.08 is two pints in one hour for a 170 lb. man. it does impair judgement, reaction time, and your motor skills.

drunk driving is a pretty big taboo, but only recently has it become so. anymore punishment is pretty severe and more often than not the courts are not willing to plea bargain. PacRim might be able to plea if he has a clean record, otherwise. if you screw up twice, though it is grab your ankles time.

[Tippster]

...I was absolutely horrified the first time I was in the States and realised the extent of the drink driving culture. It just doesn't seem to be a strong social taboo.

We're a much bigger country with much worse public transportation than yours. There's a reason why car-Culture started here.

Not an excuse, just a possible explanation.

[Arnold Babar]

I don't think anybody's having a pop at the kid. He fucked up. We all fuck up from time to time.

What is guaranteed to bring out the preaching and sanctimony are posts like YetiMan's.

If you think BAC .08 is nothing, what would you propose it was changed to? I'm guessing that raising the legal limit for drink driving wouldn't be such a great political career move. So you're stuck with what you've got. You don't have to like it - you just have to obey it. Otherwise, well, I guess you're better equipped than most people here to talk about the consequences.

I was absolutely horrified the first time I was in the States and realised the extent of the drink driving culture. It just doesn't seem to be a strong social taboo.

It is very much a part of life over here. Public transportation and even paid taxis are almost non-existant in suburban america, but bars and pubs and a culture of drinking are profligate. As is the American way we attack the problem with law enforcement: "There is a lot of crime so let's build more prisons." God forbid we try to prevent criminal behavior in the first place. We'd rather preach an punish than actually fix the problem. It is a lot more complicated than just having stricter guidelines and beefing up enforcement. It comes down to how our communities are structured and how we spend our public funds (inluding billions donated by alcohol lobbies). We'd rather spend $ on a fleet of police cruisers and an army of cops than a working bus system and alcohol education in public schools. Mr. gyptian will now call me a communist and tell me to leave the country.