I realize this is a personal issue, but that’s awfully old for that kind of thing. It also makes me wonder if perhaps he has early dementia, and is drinking to cope with it?
He’s looking at Madison Cawthorne as a role model.
This is a lot of speculation. Is it common for people with early dementia to drink to cope with it?
Do you have even a shred of evidence to support this, or are you just mindlessly bashing the elderly?
I would assume an 82 year old is capable of drinking too much and deciding to drive, even when of otherwise sound mind–same as someone of an other age.
Not really. People of all legal ages enjoy alcohol, and it really doesn’t take too much to run afoul of the law.
Seriously, that’s right out of left field.
Not your fault as the CNN headline is misleading. But apparently the proper headline should have been " arrested on suspicion of DUI".
I’ll fix the title for you.
How are “driving under the influence” and “driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.08% or higher” two separate offences?
I was on a jury for a trial here in Cook County, Illinois about a decade ago; I recall that, at least here, at that time, there were two separate, different laws for DUI (the defendant in my trial was charged with both):
- A law regarding someone who is observed by a law-enforcement officer as driving under the influence (i.e., weaving while driving, slurring speech when questioned after being pulled over, alcohol on the breath, open alcohol container in the car, etc.).
- A law regarding someone who was operating a vehicle, and subsequently failed a breathalyzer or blood alcohol test.
Indeed. My father is 88, my mother is just about to turn 82. They both still enjoy a drink or two before dinner, and they both still drive (generally not in combination).
Instead of dementia, I suspect it’s more likely that an 82 year old can’t hold his liquor as well as he used to.
For one thing, the offense of “driving under the influence” probably includes the influence of drugs other than alcohol.
At this time of year, coming from Napa County, fair guess (and only a guess) is that he was coming home from a barrel tasting event. Memorial Day weekend is a popular time for many wineries to offer their barrel tastings.
He shouldn’t have been driving under the influence --and if he failed a breathalyzer, he probably was – but I doubt he was the only one.
I’ll bet Memorial Day weekend is like shooting fish in a barrel for DUIs in Napa County.
Was he wearing a tan suit? That’d be beyond the pale.
You can be under the influence even if you’re under .08, if you’re impaired. You can also, of course, be under the influence of other substances. Conversely, you can be .08 and still breaking the law even if you pass the field sobriety test.
Driving while drunk is dangerous, and in years past, tended to be NOT taken very seriously. Sometime around the 1970s (IIRC), a movement arose to pressure lawmakers to take it much more seriously – pushed largely by MADD. Since then, laws have been made that seem to push the limits of draconian hysteria and overreaction.
The laws described by @kenobi_65 and @Esprise_Me seem common and typical today, and seem to define the mere suspicion of DUI to be a crime in itself, separate from and in addition to actually being drunk. Thus, if you are stopped for a mere suspicion of DUI, you are already immediately guilty of at least the crime of being suspected of DUI.
You must live in bizarro world. How else could you think that “attempting to find a rational explanation” = “bashing the elderly”?
In some states, if someone is alleged to have committed a single crime more than one way, it will be reported as multiple charges. You can be convicted of DUI without ever having a BAC measurement, and you can also be convicted based solely on a BAC measurement even if the other evidence wouldn’t be sufficient to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
Sometimes the same thing happens with murder suspects, where they kill three people but get charged initially with six counts of murder.
I get the comment comes from left field, but bashing the elderly?
Really? That’s a bigger reach than @nearwildheaven 's comment.
Well, assuming it was possible dementia (which as I’m sure you’re aware generally happens to older folks) instead of just plain old inability to make a good choice re: driving after drinking, which happens to people of any age?