Lemme get this straight:
Your cousin is pulled over for speeding. The car reeks of marijuana. He’s UNDER 21. The police search the car and find a six pack in the trunk, give him the breathalizer and find he’s been drinking. He’s under age. He’s been speeding. The car smells of pot.
WHAT THE FUCK???
Oh, yeah, he’s not acting supsicious at all. Sure, your car reeks of an illegal substance, sure, he’s underage and he’s been drinking. He has booze in his car, he’s been speeding…um, yeah, no problem that I can see!
More and more laws to push this country back to the good 'ol days of puritanism.
Next it will be a zero tolerance on alcohol. It’s around the corner and it will be be as effective as the zero tolerance war on drugs.
Laws will not, and cannot, solve the problems of this world.
I suspect that a number of the posters here telling the posters’s cousin that he got what he deserved will be bitching and moaning a few years from now when endless maralizing laws come knocking on their doors.
Look-the kid was caught speeding. Okay, bam! Then the cops found the car stunk of weed. Okay, weed’s illegal, so the kid agrees to search the car. Bam-they find beer in his trunk (and after checking his license, find he’s underage, bam!) So they give him the breathalizer…bam! He’s been drinking. What the hell?
Hey Guinastasia- Ever read the title of the thread?
I was responding to the larger question. The question asked in the Title- “Bullshit DUI Laws”.
I happen to agree that the laws are bullshit and getting worse by the day. Enough already. How many laws do you need on the books before you can be happy?
When will the machinery that is MADD say we can let the current laws do their job and stop enacting more and more legislation?
Because I don’t see anything in their agenda that says, “O.K… That’s enough.” I see them saying “More. MOOOREEE.”
This kid got caught up in the hysteria.
Did this kid fuck up? Yes. He did. Should he be punished? Yes. He should.
It’s the how much and why that is the issue with me.
.01 means being charged with a DUI and losing your license? Gimme a break.
First of all, to everyone who decided to insult my handle, call me stupid, inbred, some drug-addled alcoholic monster, thanks, that helps me take your point seriously.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like I’m being misinterpreted.
My point totally isn’t “Whoo! Party! Drink! If your BAC is under .1 when you wake up after you pass out drive with your fuckin eyes closed!”
I’m not saying my cousin did something smart. Not at all. He fucked up. He realizes (or should have realized at least) by getting a driver’s liscence and using it that he consents to all applicable laws, even ones that say any trace of alcohol in his bloodstream while driving is DUI. He consents implicitly that he should have known he was drinking that night and should have gotten home some other way. Legally in my view he has little recourse, he fucked up, got busted, life goes on.
However, my point is that the law he got busted on is bullshit, not what happened to him.
It’s your perrogative to say “Wait a day before you get behind the wheel after you have a sip of Zima, any alcohol + driving = death.” But New Jersey state law says you’re good to drive if you can legally drink and you have a BAC of less than .1 .
.01 BAC is a trace amount. While theoretically any alteration above baseline presents an increased to himself or other drivers, this is not only a risk that is acceptable to the state of NJ if he’s 21, it’s a risk that’s so small that I would guess only the most fervent anti-drinking-and-driving crusaders would argue that it’s irresponsible.
He gets pulled over and eventually gets a breathlizer and the cop has proof he has a small amount of bloodstream in his system. If the state arrested him for underage consumption and possession of alcohol, I would sympathize with him, but I wouldn’t agree with him that he got a raw deal.
Call me a hippie or an idiot or some reckless fuck out to get all your kids killed by drunk drivers but I’m sorry, to say that he committed the same crime as an alcoholic flying down the highway the wrong way at 90 mph is bullshit.
Sure, the penalty is reduced and he’ll get his liscence back in a month or two and the state won’t give him too much shit about the arrest, he’s always going have it say that he was arrested for drinking under the influence of alcohol. I guess this might not be a hindrance for getting some less prestigous job like fry-chef at McDonalds or leader of the free world, but it certainly is a severe disadvantage for a college or employer to see a DUI arrest on your record, and it’s certainly fucking ridiculous to have that follow you around when he was never driving while affected by alcohol.
The state isn’t wrong in punishing him for doing something wrong, but call it what it is. I don’t know, maybe it’s specious reasoning on my part, but to be caught for driving drunk when you’re not drunk by the legal definition of the word is ridiculous no matter what age you are.
My proofreading of my proofreading is worse than my proofreading.
means “small amount of alcohol in his system”
Also, as an aside, there seems to diametrically opposed camps in this thread, those who seem to have this reverance for law, and those who see that this is totally a bullshit law that catches people for something they’re not doing.
To everybody browbeating me for being irate at what happened to because the law says he had it coming seem to miss the point. Fuck the law! The law is bullshit! The law is only there cause some asshole thought it should be, and I’m saying that this particular law is a piece of fascist horseshit.
Ok, TheRyan and CnoteChris, the title is not the important thing here. Just because the title of the thread is “Bullshit DUI Laws” doesn’t mean that that is entirely what the thread is about.
Everyone was responding to the OP of the thread, which was basically someone complaining about their cousin getting caught for breaking the law. Don’t try and come in from a completely different direction then get hissy at other posters who are responding to what the thread was about, not what it was called.
I think it would be a lot more productive to move the dicussion away from this particular kid and towards the actual law. I think that the fact that this kid deserved something is confusing the issue of rather or not he deserved what he got.
What disturbs me is that under this same law, a 20-year old who had a glass of champagne at his sister’s wedding, waited an hour, and then drove home could also be convicted. A BA of .01 is insignifigant to the point of being meaningless. I’m suprised that the margin of error on the test isn’t higher than that. If nothing else, I would worry that this could dilute the stigma behind having a DUI. Right now a DUI means that you carelessly endangered other peoples lives by driving while impared. If enough people get DUIs without endangering people’s lives or know people that have gotten DUIs without endangering people’s lives, the fact that someone has a DUI on thier record will not invoke the same knee-jerk disapproval.
I am all for punnishng drunk drivers, esp. underage drunk drivers. And if they were to use the breathilizer test to convict for underage drinking, that seems fair. A conviction for underage drinking carries less stigma than a DUI, and you ought to carry the stigma you earned, not an inflated one.
I guess this is exactly the misinterpretation that caused this whole mess. I was complaining that my cousin got arrested for breaking the law, but the whole point was that he got arrested on a law that doesn’t make any sense, which was indeed why the title was “Bullshit DUI Laws.”
I definitely see why some people didn’t understand what i meant in the OP, i didn’t say it particularly clearly
I still don’t think, however, that after reading the OP you can say that I’m just some punk bitching about how people should be able to break the laws and not suffer the consequences. I was trying to talk about how the law punishes people unfairly and by an arbitrary distinction that could be readily avoided
I don’t think I am coming in from a different angle. I think I understood the O.P. quite well.
I don’t agree with that statute.
Charge the kid for underage drinking. Charge him for speeding. Hell, if the kid had a tail light out, charge him for that too.
But charging him for driving under the influence at .01 because, and only because, he’s underage, is ridiculous.
The o.p. has a very valid argument.
He presents it and most everyone responds by saying, “He’s underage and shouldn’t be drinking in the first place… He was asking for it… He got what he deserved… blah, blah, blah.”
To me, a bunch of knee-jerk reactions to a problem already being addressed by other laws.
It’s this kind of reaction that lets those kinds of laws get on the books in the first place.
Step back, take a look at the law, and say you think it’s just.
I’m accustomed to seeing more rational responses from most of you. Especially oldscratch: I thought you had a good grasp of bogus laws, since you keep up with the ecstacy situation. There’s bogus laws about alcohol just like there are about ecstacy.
The fact that the kid behaved stupidly does not mean that the law is just, or that he deserved to get busted. Likely to get busted? Yes. Deserved? No.
I agree with CnoteChris about the knee-jerking going on in here. Hell, I even agree with The Ryan, for the first time ever.
I realize that this is The Pit, but still, I expected a little more rational (and more-rational) behavior.
I’ve started a Great Debate thread where you can discuss DUI laws and whether they’re appropriate.
I’ve got to go with the “he did other things wrong but was not really DUI” argument.
The way I see it, he was actually being kinda responsible. The speeding, the pot, and the possesion of alcohol aside, he waited until he was sober enough to drive before he did so.
Since I live where the legal drinking age is 18, this whole situation seems really silly.
As a person who’s spent time in a wheelchair because of a drunk driver, I’m going to weigh in and say, yes, the law about DUI is BS. The cousin deserved all the other charges brought against him and he may not be the brightest kid (who speeds when you’re underage and have beer in the car?!), but a level of .01 gets him a DUI charge? That doesn’t seem right. If they want to make it a lower number for those underage fine, but .01 does seem extreme to me.
What’s bullshit is trying asscociate DUI laws with drinking at home, or in a bar, and taking responsibility for your actions. Have as many drinks or whatever amount of drugs you want in the privacy of your own home, or in a place designated for such frivolity, but get into a car and drive – forget about it. There is no excuse. Sleep it off, call a cab, get a designated driver, or walk. But don’t tell me you only had three beers, when you crash into my car.
Oh yeah, all that aside, he was a really responsible guy… :rolleyes:
Sorry to sound like a fascist, but underage drinking is against the law. It is perfectly acceptable to have zero tolerance for minors, IMHO.
I got a DUI in 1990. Probably should have had several more. It didn’t affect my ability to get a job, because it’s still a traffic violation (or at least it was then), and in CA they seem to only be concerned with felonies.
A good friend of mine, father of beautiful 9 month old twins, almost got killed in Benedict Canyon the other night by a suspected drunk driver on the wrong side of the road in an SUV. They had to cut Sasha out of his car while he was unconscious, and his internal organs are a mess, not to mention his skull.
The drinker is the worst judge of his/her own impairment.
As to the OP- quit whining, he fucked up & got caught.