Many laws are subjective. What is “obstruction of justice” or “resisting arrest” or even “the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought”? That’s part of the reason we have juries.
There’s no reason a DUI law couldn’t be subjective other than the no “auto-conviction” that the MADD mothers and police departments want. Juries could look at cruiser videotapes and listen to testimony from everyone. If a guy gets out of his car, with beer cans and liquor bottles dumping out, and he falls on his face in the middle of the road, the jury probably doesn’t need a BAC to convict him of drunken driving.
If there is doubt…let’s say I make up a term and say that the doubt is “reasonable” that the guy wasn’t drunken driving…isn’t/shouldn’t that be a not guilty for him? Or is a per se level better so we can have assembly line justice?
Great so if I have a QC I can get off but the poor bloke on Legal Aid gets done?
We have auto conviction in Australia and it seems to work fine. We heard all the same arguments when these laws were being introduced in here but the world hasn’t changed, we still like to go and get pissed, there are a million more bars etc all it means is that we a designated driver or catch a taxi. Also when we saw that deaths on the road dropped dramatically the arguments seemed to pale into insignificance.
Just to support the example of Australia a bit further, apart from having had 0.05 BAC for a fair while we also have constant media advertising to reinforce the message about drink driving.
The slogan used in Victoria is fairly subtle. “If you drink and drive you’re a bloody idiot”.
Packaged alcohol all has a label on it telling you how many “Standard” drinks are in the container.
So a can of full strength beer @ 4.8% alcohol is 1.4 standard drinks.
The “Standard Drink” concept has been used for decades to help people understand how much they can drink without being over the limit. ie, 3 standard drinks in 60 minutes will take you to 0.05 and 1 each hour afterward will keep you there. They are moving away from that concept though.
The other thing that some people have mentioned is access to a way to get home. Well, in the capital cities and surrounding suburbs there’s plenty of ready access to public transport. Trains buses and taxis, but Australia is a bloody big place and you get out into the smaller towns and you’re buggered. It’s walk or drive.
Many large pubs and clubs (RSL, Golf etc) now have their own minibuses which will collect people from home, bring them out to drink and drop them home afterward, all for free. It’s to encourage people to come out and have a night out without needing to worry about how they’re getting home.
At the end of the day, lower blood alcohol levels save lives particularly if people who offend are whacked by the law.
In my state you have to fail a sobriety test before they can use a breathalizer on you. Pass the test and you’re on your way. And they have to have suspicion of incapacitation to pull you over in the first place.
They can’t force you to do anything but you’re presumed to be guilty if you don’t.
Only in the sense that you can be arrested and compelled to take the breathalyzer under penalty of license revocation. But you are not presumed guilty of DUI without due process.
Correct. In my state, the license suspension is an administrative action imposed for refusing to submit to the breathalyzer, independent of the criminal charge of DUI.
This smells of having everything to do with revenue enhancement, not only for jurisdictions, but for the breathalyzer chasing attorneys as well, and little to do with public safety.
Want to improve public safety - get tough on the repeat offenders. The habitual drunks that have little regard for the law, or the public, no matter what the level. As far as I’m concerned, lock them up and throw away the key. How many stories of driver had 5 previous DWI convictions, yet there he is out on the highway again, do you need?
The problem is not the patrons who might share a bottle of wine over dinner and blow a .05 on the way home.
Get the habitual drunks, the cell phone users, and the texters off the damn road if you want to improve highway safety.
chances are you’re eating the DUI one way or another. If a DUI hurts you professional you can buy your way out of it but nothing really changes regarding your license.
WTF is a “breathalyzer chasing attorney”? A DUI conviction has lasting consequences. Seeking legal advice after being charged with a crime is generally a wise decision. If you have a potential defense, why would you not raise it?
Ummm…the first sentence is not necessarily true, depending on the circumstances of a particular case. The second is ridiculously ill informed. You appear to have strong opinions but little if any actual knowledge of DUI law or defense strategy.
what I meant by the first sentence is that you’re paying for it one way or another. If you don’t want it on your record then it’s going to cost you a lawyer who specializes in DUI’s.
In Australia it is a traffic offense not a criminal one, although if you were drunk and driving at 200kmph then you could get charged with putting life in danger of death and that is criminal.
Good grief, the NTSB doesn’t even have the authority to pass new regulations. All they can do is make recommendations, which regulatory bodies are free to, and often do, ignore. How could it have anything to do with revenue enhancement?
Just a term I use for the attorneys that run continual advertising targeted at people who get charged or are in the process of being charged for a DWI. Those ads run on the radio in these parts all the time.
Are you really saying that there are no states that would try to utilize the NTSB’s recommendation to lower the regulations in order to enhance their revenue income, all in the name of highway safety of course? “Think of the children”