It's justified. There's a lot of intoxicated drivers out there. The fact that they've been lucky so far doesn't mean they should still be out there driving.
Look at how many posters here will admit they drove drunk, and are grateful they never hit anyone. That gives credibility to the argument that DWI often goes undetected. But undetected DWI is not safe DWI.
Driving Under the Influence of......Bread?
Phil Price, a good friend and nationally known DUI attorney in Montgomery, Alabama, conducted an interesting series of tests with one of the most commonly used breath testing machines, an Intoxilyer 5000.
Without consuming any alcoholic beverages, he submitted himself to repeated breath testing -- after eating various types of food. His findings were startling.
After consuming almost any type of bread product -- white loaf bread, donuts, pretzels, pastries, etc. -- Price consistently registered blood-alcohol readings on the machine.
These levels were commonly around .03%, but rose as high as .05% (enough, in conjunction with a drink or two, to reach illegal levels).
Further, the Intoxilyzer's slope detector (an electrical circuit designed to detect alcohol from the mouth rather than from the lungs) failed to indicate the presence of any "mouth alcohol".
He reported this in an article entitled "Intoxilyzer: A Bread Testing Device?", 15(4) Drinking/Driving Law Letter 52 (1996).
Not as currently defined. If you would look into it just a little bit, you would probably agree.
I have said the following so many times to so many people on this forum that I don't remember all those to whom I have said it, so I apologize if I've said it to you before.
Here it comes anyway.
Single-celled organisms resist confinement. We are the highest life form on the planet in the most freedom-loving country. It amazes me that people will argue for and advocate restriction of their own and their fellow citizens' movement on a "conservative" news forum.
Well, since you think the stopping of all individuals in their vehicles to make sure they're not breaking the law in the interest of "safety" is justified:
I really feel there is a need to begin setting up checkpoints to stop drug smugglers. They would be random, but some states have to do something because it's getting to be a major problem, and it's killing a lot of innocent people. Besides, if you're not smuggling drugs, you won't have anything to worry about.
Hint - This was attempted by the NC police back in the 90's along Rt 40. It was deemed UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and unjustified by the Supreme Court in either 2001 or 2002!
Most drunk driving fatalities occur at BAC levels way above the 0.08 limit (I don't have the source handy, but I think 50th %l was over 0.15), even though comparatively few drinking drivers have such high BACs. Any resources spent going after drivers with a 0.08-0.09 BAC are resources not spent going after drivers with a 0.15+ BAC, even though catching the latter drivers would do far more to improve public safety.