There are oodles myths that people have claimed to have "seen for themselves"
Ever hear the one about Natives on a rez cutting a hole in the bathroom wall to water horses out of the bathtub?
Only in Saskatchewan
- Thread starter Locutus
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There are oodles myths that people have claimed to have "seen for themselves"
Ever hear the one about Natives on a rez cutting a hole in the bathroom wall to water horses out of the bathtub?
While I get what you're saying, you're ignoring the capability of police to put warnings on your file. There's no reason for the cop to 100% ignore what they saw. No reason a future cop in the same situation wouldn't see that you obviously didn't absorb the lesson. So I really don't see the issue.
Fair enough, but I still don't think it automatically makes the officer involved a d*ckhead for doing his job. I really do have no tolerance for being intoxicated and getting behind the wheel. To my way of thinking, if you take your vehicle to a bar, you simply do not over do the drinking. Because that's a conscious, sober choice to take your vehicle to a bar.
You know it's funny, and this is just a personal observation, but despite the stats still showing that the age bracket with the highest drunk driving rates being young adults, I hear more from that age group about DDs or plans to be dropped off at the bars and cab home. It's people in my own age group that that tend to say "What's the big deal." They don't seem to take it as seriously. So I wonder how many of them might have these warnings in their file. And does it make a difference?
Again, just a personal observation.
Sure. Why not.
I'd explain but what's the point really, you just make it up as you see fit anyway.
The problem with warnings is, if an officer gives a warning, and the 'offender' later causes injury or death, that warning is now used to bash the police for not taking greater steps to correct the action.
Between emotional public outcry and placating politicians, police have been forced to lean towards the letter of the law. That is to say, go heavy handed.
You don't like the DUI laws or how the authorities handle them?
Thank groups like MADD, and the politicians that give them the time of day.
Between emotional public outcry and placating politicians, police have been forced to lean towards the letter of the law. That is to say, go heavy handed.
You don't like the DUI laws or how the authorities handle them?
Thank groups like MADD, and the politicians that give them the time of day.
My problem with warnings is that they may not be taken seriously enough by the offender. And I will call them an offender without quotations because if they are in enough of an intoxicated state to receive a warning then, had they been driving in that condition, they more than likely would pose a hazard on the roadway to themselves and to others.
(And now begins the part of the rant not directly related to your post, lol.)
Yes I am very aware that a reasonable adult can have a glass of wine with dinner, or a cocktail before dinner, or X number of beers over a period of X hours and still, technically, be okay to operate a vehicle. They are not the problem and it's not a right to be able to do so anyway. Personally I'd rather see a stricter no alcohol rule and inconvenience those mentioned above in order to severely curb or eliminate those who have "one too many" and then plow into little girls on their way back from a lunch meeting, or take out a family of 5 when you cross the centre line and hit them head on. (Those being just two incidents in my recent memory).
Essentially, we all need to take it a hell of a lot more seriously and put the right amount of pressure on each other to prevent these purely preventable incidents, and pointless deaths, from happening. It will never eliminate it entirely, no law ever eliminates all crimes, but in some situations, and I do believe this is one of them, we can do a 100% better than we have been doing.
I'm aware that many will probably disagree with me but personally I'd rather see the police, with very, very, very few exceptions, follow the letter of the law to a T. We have courts to determine the validity of laws, that's their scope, not law enforcement. A poorly worded law will be redefined, struck down, reworded...as it should be. The letter of the law should be within law enforcements purview, the spirit, scope and definition within the courts and lawmakers.
Maybe that's naive, maybe it's too purely idealistic, but I feel we should be trending in that direction and we should be doing better with that.
if i am a drunk trying to find an alternate choice to dui, the law should be advising me on how to sleep it off, instead of going out of its way to bust me.
Just like the case of Edwin Oakes, if a drunk is sleeping it off in the back seat of his vehicle ( with the keys in his possession but not in the ignition), the laws impose a reverse onus on the drunk to prove that he wasn't driving under the influence. While I think passing out behind the wheel with the car running is truly illegal, sleeping it off in the back seat should be legal, and I hope to see a constitutional challenge on this someday.
R. v. Oakes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Edwin Oakes was caught with 8 vials of hashish oil. He claimed he had purchased 10 vials of hashish oil for $150 for his own use. He was also in possession of $619.45 which he claimed to have received from a government program. Despite Oakes' protests that the vials were meant for pain relief and that the money he had was from a $666 workers' compensation cheque, Section 8 of the Narcotic Control Act (NCA) established a 'rebuttable presumption" that possession of a narcotic inferred an intention to traffic unless the accused established the absence of such an intention.
Oakes made a constitutional challenge, claiming that the reverse onus created by the presumption of possession for purposes of trafficking violated the presumption of innocence guarantee under section 11(d) of the Charter. The issue before the Court was whether s. 8 of the NCA violated s. 11(d) of the Charter, and whether any violation of s. 11(d) could be upheld under s. 1.
Just like the case of Edwin Oakes, if a drunk is sleeping it off in the back seat of his vehicle ( with the keys in his possession but not in the ignition), the laws impose a reverse onus on the drunk to prove that he wasn't driving under the influence. While I think passing out behind the wheel with the car running is truly illegal, sleeping it off in the back seat should be legal, and I hope to see a constitutional challenge on this someday.
R. v. Oakes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Edwin Oakes was caught with 8 vials of hashish oil. He claimed he had purchased 10 vials of hashish oil for $150 for his own use. He was also in possession of $619.45 which he claimed to have received from a government program. Despite Oakes' protests that the vials were meant for pain relief and that the money he had was from a $666 workers' compensation cheque, Section 8 of the Narcotic Control Act (NCA) established a 'rebuttable presumption" that possession of a narcotic inferred an intention to traffic unless the accused established the absence of such an intention.
Oakes made a constitutional challenge, claiming that the reverse onus created by the presumption of possession for purposes of trafficking violated the presumption of innocence guarantee under section 11(d) of the Charter. The issue before the Court was whether s. 8 of the NCA violated s. 11(d) of the Charter, and whether any violation of s. 11(d) could be upheld under s. 1.
Yeah, right! Why can't YOU pick an alternative? Like not drink to that point, take a bus, take a taxi, drink within walking distance of home!
while the evils of DUI is well documented, the evils of sleeping it off in the back seat is dubious at best. A law that places the sleeper in the same legal jeopardy as the driver, does not match the concepts of proportionality as described by the Oaks test.
"Why can't YOU pick an alternative?"
I do. Why would my alternative be a 'one size fits all'?
"Why can't YOU pick an alternative?"
I do. Why would my alternative be a 'one size fits all'?
Local Police Forces and MADD make PSA's doing just that.
Because the end result of failing to comply with a warning, can result in injury or death.
Which leaves the Police liable.
You shouldn't be drunk and then trying to find alternate choices. If you have your vehicle with you, you do not drink or you stop drinking. Period, end of story.
If you intend to go out drinking, you don't bring your vehicle with you. Period, end of story.
Nobody accidentally gets too drunk to drive. People start out sober and in a condition where they should damn well know better and choices need to be made then.
Imo, when I put my scenario of a back seat sleeper through the same criteria as the oaks case, there is no rational connection between the admirable act of sleeping it off, and the low life despicable act of drinking and driving. I would be ashamed to make this connection because it smacks of an emotionally charged witch hunt directed at the wrong people.
However, this does not mean that I don't support your intolerance for drinking drivers. In fact, I have much contempt for drinking drivers. I am more concern about the idiot that has 2 beer and drives home, than the socially conscious person that drinks 10 beer then sleeps it off in the back seat of his car.
However, this does not mean that I don't support your intolerance for drinking drivers. In fact, I have much contempt for drinking drivers. I am more concern about the idiot that has 2 beer and drives home, than the socially conscious person that drinks 10 beer then sleeps it off in the back seat of his car.
It wasn't my intention to suggest that you do. In fact, you can read the "you" in my previous post as a generic you, in that this is the sentence/statement that everyone should be stating to themselves before they head out to a bar in the first place.
The piece that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around is this notion that people so intoxicated that they need to sleep it off are being socially conscious. I am not a tea totaller by any stretch, and I've been in the company of many intoxicated people in my day. Some happy drunks, some miserable drunks. But one thing I would never use to described a drunk person is conscious thinker. The thinking abilities of an intoxicated individual is questionable at best.
Even if it's a reverse onus for the burden of proof, and I'm not arguing that it isn't, it would, in my mind, be the lessor of two (potential) evils. There are many areas of the law that could be construed as to violate individual rights but are considered exceptions that are reasonable for the greater public good. I firmly believe that this is one of those areas.
I don't think the issue is in enforcement. There of plenty of DUI cases in the courts. The problem, and I support MADD and other groups on this, is in the punishments. There is no teeth in the law. Too many still get a slap on the wrist, a few months suspension and a meaningless fine. If we were to toss these people in jail for 6 months to a year and take their license for 1-2 years for the first offense drunk driving would reduce in a hurry.
I met this guy years ago who was serving 60 days on weekends for his 14th DUI while waiting to go to trial on his 15th & 16th. Absolutely pathetic to think that breaking the same law 14 times only gets you 60 days.
I known several people as you describe and what you have essentially is "two people", the one, sober, productive, sincere and most often very likeable and generally very intelligent, and I think it's this persona that judges are hesitant to destroy. I don't know what the answer is but for sure we CAN'T be allowing these people to put other lives at risk. It's very sad!
I do. My alternative is to not drink more than one unless I am at home or staying in a hotel. A lot of the time I don't even have one. If I am in a social setting where there is peer pressure to have a few like a christmas party a glass of cola with a lime in it and everyone thinks you are drinking.
Besides, it is way more fun to watch everyone else get drunk and make fools of themselves than to join in.