L.A. Times: Sierra Club leader departs amid discontent over group's direction (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sierra-club-20111119,0,3734323.story)
Sierra Club can go fuck itself for what they tried to do to block the I-355 extension here.
I lump them in with organizations like MADD - I agree 100% with their stated goals, but they take it way too far.
Quote from: realjd on November 20, 2011, 09:45:47 PM
I lump them in with organizations like MADD - I agree 100% with their stated goals, but they take it way too far.
I agree 0% with the Sierra Club's stated goals, but they take it way too far.
Quote from: Beltway on November 20, 2011, 10:20:14 PM
Quote from: realjd on November 20, 2011, 09:45:47 PM
I lump them in with organizations like MADD - I agree 100% with their stated goals, but they take it way too far.
I agree 0% with the Sierra Club's stated goals, but they take it way too far.
Stated Mission:
QuoteTo explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.
Pretty freakin' radical, huh?
I think it's that last clause that alienates people, but certainly I'm amazed that people don't agree with 75% of the stated objectives
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on November 20, 2011, 11:07:59 PM
Quote from: Beltway on November 20, 2011, 10:20:14 PM
Quote from: realjd on November 20, 2011, 09:45:47 PM
I lump them in with organizations like MADD - I agree 100% with their stated goals, but they take it way too far.
I agree 0% with the Sierra Club's stated goals, but they take it way too far.
Stated Mission: QuoteTo explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.
Pretty freakin' radical, huh?
They pay lip service to those 'goals'. In reality they emphasize nature over humans, and regard humans as cancer.
QuoteThey pay lip service to those 'goals'. In reality they emphasize nature over humans, and regard humans as cancer.
So you disagree with the execution of the goals, not the stated goals, right?
Quote from: corco on November 20, 2011, 11:23:31 PM
QuoteThey pay lip service to those 'goals'. In reality they emphasize nature over humans, and regard humans as cancer.
So you disagree with the execution of the goals, not the stated goals, right?
Actions speak louder than words, actions in effect become words.
Quote from: realjd on November 20, 2011, 09:45:47 PM
I lump them in with organizations like MADD - I agree 100% with their stated goals, but they take it way too far.
yep, MADD has gone completely off their rocker. look at European drinking and driving laws, for example, which are a lot more sane. you can buy anything up to and including hard alcohol at gas stations and freeway service areas! just ... don't drive drunk. you are trusted to be able to make that decision yourself.
that said -
don't drive drunk!. blood-alcohol level tolerances are much lower - .02 to .05, as opposed to the US's common .08 - and the penalties much stiffer. in Sweden, you blow a .02 twice, they seize your car.
but the laws focus on driving drunk, not on drinking. I think there might not even be an open-container law - you might very well be able to drink an alcoholic beverage while sitting behind the wheel. (I never tried that, but I was quite happy to consume half a beer with my service-area lunch in Denmark!)
and yet it's the US - with its bizarre state-run liquor stores, blue laws, open-container laws, and the highest legal drinking age on the planet - which has the drunk-driving problem.
Quote from: Beltway on November 20, 2011, 11:22:22 PM
They pay lip service to those 'goals'. In reality they emphasize nature over humans, and regard humans as cancer.
That was exactly my point. I agree with their stated goals, but not the way the organization goes about trying to reach them or with the unstated goals of the organization. I compared with MADD because their stated goal is the reduction of drunk driving - which we can all agree on - but in practice push neoprohibitionist policies.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on November 21, 2011, 12:20:40 AM
Quote from: realjd on November 20, 2011, 09:45:47 PM
I lump them in with organizations like MADD - I agree 100% with their stated goals, but they take it way too far.
yep, MADD has gone completely off their rocker. look at European drinking and driving laws, for example, which are a lot more sane. you can buy anything up to and including hard alcohol at gas stations and freeway service areas! just ... don't drive drunk. you are trusted to be able to make that decision yourself.
that said - don't drive drunk!. blood-alcohol level tolerances are much lower - .02 to .05, as opposed to the US's common .08 - and the penalties much stiffer. in Sweden, you blow a .02 twice, they seize your car.
but the laws focus on driving drunk, not on drinking. I think there might not even be an open-container law - you might very well be able to drink an alcoholic beverage while sitting behind the wheel. (I never tried that, but I was quite happy to consume half a beer with my service-area lunch in Denmark!)
and yet it's the US - with its bizarre state-run liquor stores, blue laws, open-container laws, and the highest legal drinking age on the planet - which has the drunk-driving problem.
Vestiges of prohibition. We have lots of Christian sects where drinking is sinful. They try and get the laws to conform to their beliefs. Crazy stuff like no buying beer until 2PM on Sunday in the county that I live in. The justification being to keep drunks off the road. This is from the mouth of a county commissioner. Interesting that he is a member of the xxxx Baptist Church. If some one is a drunk they are gonna have booze anyway or swill down some Scope. Waiting till after your 11am servcice does nothing to stop drunk driving, it just inconveniences people who are trying to do some shopping on Sunday morning.
Quote from: jwolfer on November 21, 2011, 10:52:54 AM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on November 21, 2011, 12:20:40 AM
Quote from: realjd on November 20, 2011, 09:45:47 PM
I lump them in with organizations like MADD - I agree 100% with their stated goals, but they take it way too far.
yep, MADD has gone completely off their rocker. look at European drinking and driving laws, for example, which are a lot more sane. you can buy anything up to and including hard alcohol at gas stations and freeway service areas! just ... don't drive drunk. you are trusted to be able to make that decision yourself.
that said - don't drive drunk!. blood-alcohol level tolerances are much lower - .02 to .05, as opposed to the US's common .08 - and the penalties much stiffer. in Sweden, you blow a .02 twice, they seize your car.
but the laws focus on driving drunk, not on drinking. I think there might not even be an open-container law - you might very well be able to drink an alcoholic beverage while sitting behind the wheel. (I never tried that, but I was quite happy to consume half a beer with my service-area lunch in Denmark!)
and yet it's the US - with its bizarre state-run liquor stores, blue laws, open-container laws, and the highest legal drinking age on the planet - which has the drunk-driving problem.
Vestiges of prohibition. We have lots of Christian sects where drinking is sinful. They try and get the laws to conform to their beliefs. Crazy stuff like no buying beer until 2PM on Sunday in the county that I live in. The justification being to keep drunks off the road. This is from the mouth of a county commissioner. Interesting that he is a member of the xxxx Baptist Church. If some one is a drunk they are gonna have booze anyway or swill down some Scope. Waiting till after your 11am servcice does nothing to stop drunk driving, it just inconveniences people who are trying to do some shopping on Sunday morning.
Yep, these are the exact same Protestants who have conveniently forgotten that Martin Luther himself often extolled the virtues of good beer.
:spin:
:cheers:
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on November 21, 2011, 11:35:39 AM
Yep, these are the exact same Protestants who have conveniently forgotten that Martin Luther himself often extolled the virtues of good beer.
And that Jesus Christ himself turned water into wine!
We have such organizations in Europe as well. They always say everything they do is in the interest of nature or the environment, but they are generally just an anti-car brigade. I mean they try to block every single project that improves traffic flow. People getting somewhere by car is their nightmare.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on November 21, 2011, 12:20:40 AMyep, MADD has gone completely off their rocker. look at European drinking and driving laws, for example, which are a lot more sane. you can buy anything up to and including hard alcohol at gas stations and freeway service areas! just ... don't drive drunk. you are trusted to be able to make that decision yourself.
that said - don't drive drunk!. blood-alcohol level tolerances are much lower - .02 to .05, as opposed to the US's common .08 - and the penalties much stiffer. in Sweden, you blow a .02 twice, they seize your car.
But it is not just the laws that are different in European countries--the drinking culture is also significantly different, particularly in the countries which are held up to us as examples of responsible drinking. (By the way, not all of Europe is sensible about alcohol. Britain, for example, has an alcohol problem which has been linked to the declining real cost of alcoholic beverages, easy availability of alcopops, liberalization of hours for licensed premises, and even the smoking ban which took effect in England and Wales in 2007 and is thought to have encouraged binging on supermarket alcohol.)
Quotebut the laws focus on driving drunk, not on drinking. I think there might not even be an open-container law - you might very well be able to drink an alcoholic beverage while sitting behind the wheel. (I never tried that, but I was quite happy to consume half a beer with my service-area lunch in Denmark!)
I am not aware of any open-container laws as such. However, in Britain there is judicial precedent which (as I understand it) gives the police probable cause for a breath test if the officer sees you drinking from a hip flask while you are behind the wheel of a parked car.
Quoteand yet it's the US - with its bizarre state-run liquor stores, blue laws, open-container laws, and the highest legal drinking age on the planet - which has the drunk-driving problem.
I am not so sure that the drunk-driving problem can be attributed entirely to excessive and unsystematic laws which embody ideological holdovers from the temperance movement. I think the existence of a culture of responsible drinking is an important consideration, as is liquor taxation and restrictions on when and where liquor can be sold. You could make an argument that high excise taxes on alcohol discourage drinking to excess; indeed, in Britain it has been argued that excise taxes on spirits should be raised for precisely this reason. (In the US tax competition is perhaps more of a constraint on this strategy than in Britain. Booze cruises require somewhat more advance planning and investment than, say, a trip to a neighboring low-tax state or a trip to the nearest military base to exercise Class Six shopping privileges.) It has also been suggested that jurisdictions which permit drive-through liquor sales are much more likely to have drunk-driving problems--a likelihood which is increased when the drive-through liquor vendors are allowed to sell the liquor ready to drink in cups with straws.
In the US it is socially approved to be a dry drunk. This is in striking contrast to France, where you can expect to be served a glass of wine with lunch and dinner and where the liquor tax has traditionally amounted to just a few centimes per bottle of wine, but where public drunkenness is social anathema.
I'll also argue the greater prevalence of public transportation in Europe reduces the perceived need to drive intoxicated. How many places in North America can you get from the bar to your home using public transportation?
I can do it, but then I live about 150 yards from a bus stop.
Quote from: Beltway on November 20, 2011, 11:22:22 PM
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on November 20, 2011, 11:07:59 PM
Quote from: Beltway on November 20, 2011, 10:20:14 PM
Quote from: realjd on November 20, 2011, 09:45:47 PM
I lump them in with organizations like MADD - I agree 100% with their stated goals, but they take it way too far.
I agree 0% with the Sierra Club's stated goals, but they take it way too far.
Stated Mission: QuoteTo explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.
Pretty freakin' radical, huh?
They pay lip service to those 'goals'. In reality they emphasize nature over humans, and regard humans as cancer.
I see plenty of posters on here who think of everyone else as cancer.
Quote from: Hot Rod Hootenanny on November 21, 2011, 10:15:47 PM
Quote from: Beltway on November 20, 2011, 11:22:22 PM
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on November 20, 2011, 11:07:59 PM
Quote from: Beltway on November 20, 2011, 10:20:14 PM
Quote from: realjd on November 20, 2011, 09:45:47 PM
I lump them in with organizations like MADD - I agree 100% with their stated goals, but they take it way too far.
I agree 0% with the Sierra Club's stated goals, but they take it way too far.
Stated Mission: QuoteTo explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.
Pretty freakin' radical, huh?
They pay lip service to those 'goals'. In reality they emphasize nature over humans, and regard humans as cancer.
I see plenty of posters on here who think of everyone else as cancer.
Do you have some examples of such instances?
Some new things I learned about Europe and alcohol just from a casual look in Wikipedia, compared to alleged American eccentricities:
* State-run liquor monopolies--It turns out the model is used in all of the Nordic countries with the lone exception of Denmark: Vinmonopolet in Norway, Systembolaget in Sweden, Alko in Finland, etc.
* High drinking ages--In Sweden you can be served alcohol in bars and restaurants when you turn 18, but you have to wait until you are 20 before you can buy the good stuff from a Systembolaget shop.
* Difficult legal access to alcohol--Until 1999, merchandise in Vinmonopolet stores was provided over the counter only (in other words, you had to walk up to the counter, specify what you wanted from the price list, and wait for it to be fetched from the storeroom).
* Need to "Europeanize"--It turns out that drinkers in Finland (which, of course, is in Europe already) are being urged to "Europeanize" by switching from hard liquor to wine and beer. Finland unsuccessfully attempted to implement beverage alcohol prohibition several times in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when it was still a grand duchy under Russian rule, and imposed it when it became independent in 1919. Experience with prohibition in Finland ran a close parallel to the United States--enforcement was slipshod and alcohol-related crime (including public drunkenness, liquor smuggling, and general gangsterism) skyrocketed. A plebiscite in 1932 revoked prohibition by a 70% majority.
It is certainly true, as JREwing78 says, that transport availability plays a role. It is not just the existence of public transport in general, but also its availability during drinking hours and in popular drinking and clubbing locations. I am not sure there are any large US cities (with the possible exception of San Francisco) that operate nightbus services.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on November 21, 2011, 12:20:40 AM
and yet it's the US - with its bizarre state-run liquor stores, blue laws, open-container laws, and the highest legal drinking age on the planet - which has the drunk-driving problem.
Does the US actually have a drunk driving problem? I'm struggling to find statistics on per capita DUI arrests compared to other countries. My understanding is that we weren't one of the highest.
I did find many sites stating that El Salvador executes drivers for a first DUI offense and Bulgaria does for a second offense, but I'm calling BS on that.
QuoteDoes the US actually have a drunk driving problem?
I wonder that too- how much of the issue is inflated by targeted enforcement? There have been a couple drunk driving studies that have found that you're not actually significantly impaired until .1- .08 is still fairly safe, and I do think some people are better/more "responsible" drunk drivers than others (eg stick at or below the speed limit, use backroads, are aware that they shouldn't be driving and drive as carefully as they possibly can- I don't think it's those people that usually cause drunken collisions, it's the ones that go 90 because they feel good and kill somebody)
I don't know, my theory is that there are a lot more drunk drivers on the road than we think and the vast majority of them aren't really that dangerous- and for that reason I favor the "drive drunk if you want, but if you get in an accident or get pulled over for something real* you're not driving anymore. Ever." approach.
*Speeding >5 or 10 or whatever is normally enforced in the area is real, getting pulled over for having a headlight out is not (not having your headlights on at all would be something real), I'm on the fence about forgetting to use your blinker or veering too far towards the shoulder- if you're veering into oncoming traffic that's bad, but if you're headed towards the shoulder that's not so bad. I'd say if you forget to use your blinker once that's OK, but you should be followed if caught and if you forget again then that's cause to get a DUI.
Quote from: corco on November 21, 2011, 11:43:41 PMI'd say if you forget to use your blinker once that's OK, but you should be followed if caught and if you forget again then that's cause to get a DUI.
there are times when I go hundreds of miles without using a blinker ... I figure if what I am doing is intuitive enough that I don't need to announce my intentions (sometimes because there isn't anyone to whom to announce!) then I just won't bother.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?
If you're driving right by a cop and you have to turn, do you use your blinker? Especially if you've been drinking? I know I do/would.
Especially if you forget once in front of a cop and then he starts following you, waiting for you to forget again- if you're too drunk to realize you're being followed by a cop and don't use your blinker, that means you're a bad drunk driver and are therefore dangerous.
I guess the test is- "Is this person driving like a mediocre sober driver?" If they can clear that hurdle, they're good. A mediocre sober driver would likely start using his blinker if followed by a cop.
having been chased across entire counties from one side to the other enough times before, I would assume the cop would start following me on general principle, regardless of how fastidious I have been with blinker usage.
And that's cool, but if you're a good drunk driver and a cop is following you across the county, you'll slow to the speed limit and use your blinker and do everything you can- if you're good at tracking your car and you're erring towards the shoulder and not the center stripe, he might have probable cause to pull you over and give you a warning about something made up just to be a dick, but he'd have no legal grounds to question your alcohol content level, because you'd be driving as well as a mediocre sober driver.
If you're a bad drunk driver and you're all over the place speedwise and lane position-wise, erring towards the center stripe, then by all means you should get pulled over and have your license revoked.
Essentially, if you get a ticket and you happen to be drunk, you're in deep shit, but you can't get a ticket because you're drunk.
Realjd: where Bulgaria is concerned, it is certainly BS that they execute for a second drunk driving offense. Bulgaria is in the EU and as such has abolished the death penalty.
Regarding "good" drunk driving in general, it is possible to do a considerable amount of stuff reasonably competently while drunk. One can type, handwrite, debug code, etc.--all of which I have done at some time or another while under the influence. However, sudden rampings-up of task load expose the impairment. A person who chooses to drive drunk is taking a chance not only on not inadvertently doing something that attracts police attention (changing lane position erratically, failing to use a turn signal, failing to wear a seatbelt, etc.), but also on not winding up in a situation where he or she has to react rapidly and precisely to multiple stimuli.
Sobriety checkpoints and other forms of dragnet-style DUI enforcement attract considerable opprobrium on here but even when they are used, a significant proportion of DUI citations are issued after the offender has already had a reportable accident as a result of drinking and driving.
I am actually not in favor of taking people's licenses away for life for (in effect) being too stupid to cover up the fact that they are driving drunk. It is legally and morally absurd to make a thing illegal and then fashion failure to cover it up into an aggravating circumstance. Moreover, the process of fixing DUI penalties is complicated by the need to keep transport accessible to people who have to work so they can support their families. So, yes, I support foolproof ignition interlocks for an extended period of time for a first offense, but not taking away a driver's license permanently.
QuoteI am actually not in favor of taking people's licenses away for life for (in effect) being too stupid to cover up the fact that they are driving drunk. It is legally and morally absurd to make a thing illegal and then fashion failure to cover it up into an aggravating circumstance.
I guess I don't look at it like a cover-up. If you're too drunk to drive I don't think you can pretend you're not- you either are and bad driving behavior manifests itself or you are not and that behavior does not.
QuoteA person who chooses to drive drunk is taking a chance not only on not inadvertently doing something that attracts police attention (changing lane position erratically, failing to use a turn signal, failing to wear a seatbelt, etc.), but also on not winding up in a situation where he or she has to react rapidly and precisely to multiple stimuli.
This is definitely true, but I feel like it operates under the faulty assumption that all sober people are good at reacting to multiple stimuli and all drunk people are bad at reacting to multiple stimuli. Certainly it's true that the average sober person can react to stimuli better than the average drunk person, but I have to believe that there are some sober people who are worse at reacting to stimuli than some drunk people. Case in point: my Grandma is 83 and still drives. She recognizes that she can't drive well anymore and has well-aged reflexes, so she only drives on a select few backroads. My 83 year old Grandma would probably be really dangerous on the freeway, but at 30 MPH on a backroad she's got the reflexes to drive competently. I've ridden with her recently on roads she drives, and it's not scary, it's like riding with anybody driving 30 MPH down a two lane road. Because she's (very, possibly overly) astute at knowing her limitations, she'll probably be driving for a long time, continuing to scale back until she's just not comfortable driving anymore.
Now, I'd bet a 30 or so year old, normally responsible driver with a lot of driving experience and good reflexes with a few drinks in him is probably at least as competent as my 83 year old Grandmother at driving a car. If that person is a "responsible" drunk, they'll be like my Grandmother, realize their limitations, and stick to the slow speed backroads where there are fewer stimuli to react to. A drunk driver in 50 MPH traffic is more likely to expose themselves and fuck up, getting a hefty punishment, than a drunk driver on a rural country road.
That capability is going to vary greatly from person to person, and I think punishment should operate accordingly.
QuoteSo, yes, I support foolproof ignition interlocks for an extended period of time for a first offense, but not taking away a driver's license permanently.
That's fair.
Quote from: corco on November 22, 2011, 04:14:28 PMQuoteI am actually not in favor of taking people's licenses away for life for (in effect) being too stupid to cover up the fact that they are driving drunk. It is legally and morally absurd to make a thing illegal and then fashion failure to cover it up into an aggravating circumstance.
I guess I don't look at it like a cover-up. If you're too drunk to drive I don't think you can pretend you're not- you either are and bad driving behavior manifests itself or you are not and that behavior does not.
The thing is, driving while over the designated limit (now 0.08 more or less universally) is now
per se illegal, no matter what the driver's ability is while that drunk. I agree that this will vary from person to person and that there are probably people with unusually high tolerances for alcohol who are able to handle typical driving task loads effectively while slightly over 0.08 BAC, but who would be blown away if they accidentally ran into a sobriety checkpoint. (The standard advice to law enforcement is to give sobriety checkpoints a considerable amount of advance publicity to enhance the deterrence effect and to spike counterclaims of entrapment, but even so it is pretty easy to run into sobriety checkpoints without having had any specific advance notice of them.)
There is also an element of redundancy in stepping hard on people who are not aware enough of their abilities (or intoxication level) to avoid driving in excess of their abilities while
per se drunk. Generally these people will accumulate other moving violations, if they are not actually involved in accidents, and they will not be off the hook on those counts if they are ultimately arrested for DUI.
The problem of having
per se DUI laws is a special case of the general problem of having strict-liability traffic laws (such as absolute speed limits, absolute prohibitions on passing red signals, etc.) whose relevance to safety is often indirect and varies with the context, but which are promulgated because they are cheap to enforce. Does the reduction in enforcement cost balance out the added costs associated with pursuing cases which could otherwise be benignly ignored?
Impairment tests for DUI are very old, while
per se laws are comparatively recent. A stylized explanation for this is that impairment tests have been found to let too many incompetent drunks stay on the roads while
per se laws make them easier to remove before they run across accident triggers. Of course you could counter that by suggesting that DUI policy formation has been captured by interest groups (e.g., MADD) and that the
per se laws and tendentious studies claiming benefits for them are one outgrowth of this, but personally I know of too little evidence in support of this argument to find it compelling. There are other facts which point in the opposite direction. For example, DUI law enforcement is under-resourced in general. Many patrol officers ignore all but the most flagrant DUIs because it can take up to four hours (half a shift) in some jurisdictions to process DUI arrests, there are so few prosecutors with DUI expertise that most DUI cases are disposed of through negotiation (generally either plea-bargaining or diversion), and DUI specialists in DA offices are promoted out once they gain experience and expertise.
QuoteMy 83 year old Grandma would probably be really dangerous on the freeway, but at 30 MPH on a backroad she's got the reflexes to drive competently. I've ridden with her recently on roads she drives, and it's not scary, it's like riding with anybody driving 30 MPH down a two lane road. Because she's (very, possibly overly) astute at knowing her limitations, she'll probably be driving for a long time, continuing to scale back until she's just not comfortable driving anymore.
My own grandmother went through a similar process before she died, and that is one reason I hold to the view that any driver who is aware of the limitations in his or her abilities and accommodates them has to be regarded as a safe driver. But being elderly and being a "responsible drunk" are different since one of the symptoms of intoxication is a tendency to overestimate one's own abilities while under the influence. My own experience is that the extent of this overestimation varies from one drinking session to another, so I think there is still a considerable amount of luck involved (not just skill) in driving home safely while moderately drunk.
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 22, 2011, 05:00:10 PM
A stylized explanation for this is that impairment tests have been found to let too many incompetent drunks stay on the roads while per se laws make them easier to remove before they run across accident triggers.
what is wrong with the field sobriety tests? I had thought that, if administered by a competent and watchful officer, they were quite reliable in gauging the subject's ability to handle complex tasks which are a good correlation to driving skills.
I've never gotten an explicit field test - there have been times when I likely was as high as .03 or .04, but the officer quickly determined that I was able to answer questions in complete sentences, present a driver's license upon request, etc etc...
surprisingly enough, I have been in a
single sobriety checkpoint in my life (El Centro, CA, Dec '10) despite all my hundreds of thousands of miles of driving.
The problem with field sobriety tests is the right of refusal, which DUI evasion websites advise drivers always to exercise. Under implied consent laws you generally don't have a right to refuse a breath test without penalty--though, depending on your BAC and the administrative and criminal sanctions applied to test refusal and DUI conviction respectively, it may be in your interest to refuse the breath test and take the hit on that rather than to supply evidence for a later DUI conviction. A standard piece of advice is to ask for a lawyer when you are asked to take a breath test. This forces the police to discontinue all testing. I don't think they can count a request for an attorney as refusal.
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 22, 2011, 06:13:57 PM
The problem with field sobriety tests is the right of refusal, which DUI evasion websites advise drivers always to exercise. Under implied consent laws you generally don't have a right to refuse a breath test without penalty--though, depending on your BAC and the administrative and criminal sanctions applied to test refusal and DUI conviction respectively, it may be in your interest to refuse the breath test and take the hit on that rather than to supply evidence for a later DUI conviction. A standard piece of advice is to ask for a lawyer when you are asked to take a breath test. This forces the police to discontinue all testing. I don't think they can count a request for an attorney as refusal.
can you ask for a lawyer when asked to take a field sobriety test (like "count backwards from 17" or the like)?
When you are talking with a police officer, you can ask for a lawyer at any time, for any reason or none at all, and the fact that you have "lawyered up" cannot be used against you in court.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on November 22, 2011, 06:39:48 PM
can you ask for a lawyer when asked to take a field sobriety test (like "count backwards from 17" or the like)?
My understanding is that (at least here in Florida), the implied consent law only covers chemical testing (blood/breath/urine) and not the field sobriety test. It serves no purpose other than to gather evidence to be used against you. If you pass, they'll still follow up with the breathalyzer anyway. And at least here, if you fail the field sobriety test, they can still get you with a DUI even if you blow less than .08 (as opposed to a DWI which is BAC > .08 and the evidence is the breathalyzer results).
Quote from: realjd on November 23, 2011, 09:01:52 AM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on November 22, 2011, 06:39:48 PM
can you ask for a lawyer when asked to take a field sobriety test (like "count backwards from 17" or the like)?
My understanding is that (at least here in Florida), the implied consent law only covers chemical testing (blood/breath/urine) and not the field sobriety test. It serves no purpose other than to gather evidence to be used against you. If you pass, they'll still follow up with the breathalyzer anyway. And at least here, if you fail the field sobriety test, they can still get you with a DUI even if you blow less than .08 (as opposed to a DWI which is BAC > .08 and the evidence is the breathalyzer results).
This is where a lawyer works for their money. The DUI laws are passed with good intention or some legislator wanting to "do something" But they end up being used as cash cows for cities and counties
Quote from: agentsteel53 on November 21, 2011, 12:20:40 AM
yep, MADD has gone completely off their rocker. look at European drinking and driving laws, for example, which are a lot more sane. you can buy anything up to and including hard alcohol at gas stations and freeway service areas! just ... don't drive drunk. you are trusted to be able to make that decision yourself.
Excuse us, we're still recovering from prohibition.
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 22, 2011, 06:49:35 PM
When you are talking with a police officer, you can ask for a lawyer at any time, for any reason or none at all, and the fact that you have "lawyered up" cannot be used against you in court.
but what about refusing the field sobriety test until my lawyer shows up? could that
refusal be used against me?