Posted on 10/11/2010 7:04:01 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Austin chief pushes for new drunk driving charge
Acevedo says proposal is aimed at impaired drivers, who can be dangerous even if they aren't legally drunk By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 5:14 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010
A campaign to create a new category of driving while intoxicated is being promoted at the Capitol as one way to curb growing problems in Texas’ system of punishing drunken drivers.
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, among the supporters of the change, said the idea behind a new offense of “driving while ability impaired” — DWAI — would cover drivers whose blood-alcohol content is between 0.05 and 0.07.
That would be less than the 0.08 level required before police can charge a motorist with drunken driving.
A first-offense DWI is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine, plus potential driver’s license restrictions. No specific penalty has been proposed for DWAI.
(Excerpt) Read more at statesman.com ...
A ‘mistake’ as you call it, cost my son’s friend Nicole her life. I had to watch Nicole’s family suffer and watch my son and his entire jr. high school full of faculty/friends suffer.
A ‘mistake’ is making a left turn instead of a right turn... knowingly getting into a car when you are impaired is not a ‘mistake’. Any moron knows when you should not be behind the wheel of a car.
I guess you’ve never had a 13 year old who just lost one of his best friends weep on your shoulder and ask why the guy drove when he KNEW he shouldn’t have.
That is NOT a ‘mistake’.
>I believe that first time drunk drivers should get a mandatory 1 year in prison
Better build about 1,000 new prisons per state averaged out.
Won’t cost much LOL
How long for the second offense?
No offense, but you havent thought that through
“Two drivers head out on the roads just as drunk, behaving with the same degree of recklessness...”
You forgot the 3rd through 10th ones, who were just as drunk, and did nothing worse that head home and sleep it off. So tell us, AMPG, how many children have you molested?
Bottom line, the elites fear drunks. Many drunks are worthy of this fear. They shouldn't be on the roads. But we aren't talking about drunkenness here, we are talking about small consumption of legal alcoholic beverages before driving.
If they were truly wanting to stop drinking and driving, all bars should be closed immediately. Hyperbole of course, but it shows you the hypocrisy of our ruling fanatics. Let them get drunk and kill Mary Jo Kopechne or crash into the Capitol and it's no big deal. Let us drink four beers when we weigh two hundred pounds and the DUI special unit gets involved.
What I find interesting about drunk driving laws in particular is that “everybody” is against it, while “eveybody” does it.
Disagree?
Oh! I assume where you live there are not parking lots by restaurants and bars. Right?
Oh! But you just have “1 or 2” Right?
Well, they’re coming for you now too.
So the interesting aspect is that this is both an excercise in - and example of - social control.
We are all thoroughly conditioned now to salute any anti drinking and driving flag we see, no matter how absurd.
Yet to do so requires a certain duality of conscience. You know darned well you’re guilty too, but you still salute the flag.
One your conscience and honor are so broken, what else will you do?
Here you go with a link. There are many more out there getting persecuted, thanks to the witch hunt you and other nanny-staters are advocating.
This argument is whether to lower the BAC level to jail even more people for drinking moderately, not about taking guns into the street and shooting them. You have been conditioned to hysteria.
“I think we need to fundamentally change the warped view that drunken driving is “just a mistake”.”
I think we need to fundamentally change the warped view that you get to say what others should do.
To me the issue should be ability to operate the vehicle. If it turns out a drunk can drive better than grandma - or maybe you, or that matter, why not lock up you and grandma instead?
Drunks cannot safely operate vehicles.
>>>>The requested document does not exist on this server. <<<
Yeah, great link.
I have actually done the test where I consumed alchohol, had my level check and then did a driving simulator. I am only an occasional drinker and at .11 I made consistent errors on ths simulator. Below .10 I made no errors and at .10 I made 2 minor errors not considered dangerous. At .12 I made a dangerous error. At .14 I was seriously impared and an accident looking for a target.
A much larger person who consumed alchohol on a regular basis was taking the test at the same time. He did not experience any errors until .12 which took about 50% more alchohol for him than me. At .14 he was an accident looking for a target.
My girlfriend at the time took the test also and was an accident waiting to happen at .11
The team that was doing the research indicated that our results were typical for body size and drinking habits.
I wonder how much revenue cities made from DUI charges back in the days of apocalyptic genocidal carnage along our highways.
So you link an apparently self-published article, written by a drunk driving defense attorney, that does not cite a single specific incident of even ONE individual being wrongly convicted, due to a faulty breathalyzer, as your proof that there is an epidemic of false drunk driving convictions?
My son in law is on the local police force, and they have a squad that does nothing but blood draws and preservation of evidence in DUI cases. Is that where you want your police resources going?
There was nothing wrong with the BAC standards. So they lowered them. Now they are agitating to lower them again. These articles aren't written by accident. It's always about a bigger police state to tell us how to live.
We are drowning in laws. Eventually they will come for you too. I no longer drink, and haven't in many years. I am a recovering alcoholic, but to preach for people to drink responsibly and then jail them for doing so is vulgar and contemptible. The police commonly pull people over for the flimsiest of reasons. But if they make a stop, they are encouraged to give a ticket. Keep that in mind. My best.
In such a case the offender should have been charged with murder and jailed for the rest of his or her life.
If Joe Public blows .01 over the limit, has hurt nobody and it’s a first time offense, you are going to take away the means for them to get to keep a job and support their family?
You are arguing a point with emotion not with logic. I’m real sorry for everyones loss but it does not compute.
nah
There's nobody there that is going to hire an expensive lawyer and plea bargain a huge fine to get out of jail. Better to have cops sit on Stone Oak Parkway all night just praying to catch a rich one.
If enforcement of drunk driving laws had ANYTHING to do with public safety, they'd be enforced where the drunks are.
Any before you launch one of your ad hominem attacks, I've never been pulled over for DUI, much less convicted. I'm of an age that my drinking is limited to a glass of wine in my own home.
But hypocrisy and BS still comes through loud and clear!
I never said I was from San Antonio. I am not from anywhere near there. I do agree that cops should be looking for drunk drivers where they are most commonly found, though.
The man who murdered Nicole was on his third offense. After 2 slaps on the wrist, they finally found a judge who put him away. He received 30 years and has to keep a picture of Nicole in his cell.
If this moron didn’t learn anything after the first 2 chances he received, I really don’t give a crap if he can’t find a job when he gets out. I also don’t feel sorry for anyone who blows .01 over the limit. If they choose to get into the car and take that chance, they have to deal with the consequences. Wouldn’t it be safer just pay the 40 bucks for a taxi and not have to worry about any of it? I don’t want to hear any BS about poor people either because if they can afford enough drinks to get drunk, they darn well had the 40 bucks for a taxi.
There is NO EXCUSE for getting behind the wheel of a car impaired. The people who do it deserve what they get. It was their choice. Nicole didn’t HAVE a choice.
My husband does local long distance rides and yesterday did one in Lawrence Kansas and after it was over we hosted a few fellow travelers one of whom was complaining that he couldn’t just sit in his truck in the PD parking lot (beginning and end of the ride) and drink from his keg. LOL So we discussed that given it’s Lawrence, he could have smoked dope in public and given that it’s Kansas, he could have smoked dope and carried in public. But no beer.
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