Plaintiff attorneys are well-organized and lobby state legislatures to death. Business establishments, even small ones, will usually have liability insurance of at least half a million bucks. You can’t always count on an at-fault driver to have insurance, maybe especially one that drives drunk. But if you legislate absolute liability against an insured business that will be facilitating drunk driving you have set the system up to [del]be mined for gold[/del] further protect innocent victims of drunk drivers.
I suppose I chose poor wording. I understand what it’s about, for the reasons you articulate. But I don’t agree with it.
Even if you’re going to get a DUI and face the legal consequences, I’d say that sleeping your car is still better than trying to drive home. You may be legally guilty of a DUI, but at least you aren’t risking killing anyone, so at least morally it’s better.
I wonder what would happen if you voluntarily left your keys at the bar at 2:00 am, explained why, and then went to sleep in your car without possession of the keys. What would happen if the police found you?
Unfortunately, it’s pretty common for cops to ticket stopped and turned off vehicles if their “drivers” peg the meters. The argument is that as long as you have the key, you are in control of the vehicle, which somehow makes you subject to DUI laws.
Here’s a link explaining how some CA courts have interpreted the laws to allow convictions.
Another anecdote:
A good friend of mine got a DUI in college while sleeping in his car. There was a party going on in apartment. He wanted to go to sleep, so he left the party to sleep in his car parked in the parking lot of his place of residence. A cop knocked on the window, woke him up, and arrested him for DUI because he had the keys on his person.
Fair enough. I struggle with it as well because on the one hand–the bartender didn’t force any drinks down your throat and nobody made you drive at gunpoint–own your crummy decision. On the other hand, DUI victims are screwed if the drunk doesn’t have sufficient insurance to cover the damage they caused so who else was involved that can help the victims? Ya, the bar. From a victim’s advocate standpoint it’s a good thing. But from a personal responsibility standpoint it’s an escape hatch for irresponsible people.
But since slavery is off the table we can’t endenture the perp to the victim(s), so we’re left with less perfect solutions.
It depends on the alcohol content of what is seeping. 
Your own cite, though, clarifies that you can minimize/reduce your chances of a ‘parked car DUI’ by, for example, putting the key under the mat and curling up in the back seat to sleep. You might still get a public nuisance ticket or something like that, but better one of those than a DUI (and much better that than you know, actually risking an accident).
I would never suggest that it’s better to go ahead and drive home drunk rather than risk a DUI on what I would consider a rather shaky legal rationale.
To be clear, I wasn’t trying to claim that it’s a good idea either (certainly not in a moral sense). Just that the enforcement of “parked car DUIs” is clearly going to encourage some segment of drivers in favor of driving vs. sleeping in the car. Especially given the degraded state of one’s powers of reasoning at the time such a decision is made.
Actually, a professional grade breathalyser can be had for about $150 each, and recalibration is only required once each year on the higher end models. Training on proper breathalyser use is minimal. The wait time is closer to 15-20 minutes and is to allow for the dissipation of any “mouth alcohol”. This makes it far less likely to beat a DUI on the “mouthwash/breath spray defense”.
Per Wikipedia, what I thought was my idea is already in use:
My idea would be to publicize it well and make it voluntary, so as a server of alcohol I would be able to say in court “We encourage every drinking customer to check their BAC before leaving our establishment.”
That’s a valid point. I am no lawyer, so I don’t know if a disclaimer like “This is simply an approximation of your BAC and cannot be used as evidence of innocence in case of DUI arrest” would hold up.
That’s the inspiration for the idea - if I can be held liable for overserving, then I need a better way to determine that than a visual check.
And home isn’t going to come to you!
The actual answer is that people are terrible at assessing risks and rewards. People want to drink and get drunk. They don’t want to spend the money for a cab. So they decide that the risk of a DUI or accident is worth the reward of getting home. Most of the time they are right. It’s the times when they are wrong is when it becomes a major problem.
It seems to be more of a problem the more rural you get. Probably for the simple fact that driving distances are longer, cabs and public transportation are fewer or non-existent and there’s less traffic anyway. It also seems a lot more accepted. My wife was kind of horrified at my high school reunion how drunk people got and just got in their cars and drove home.
A good part of what’s driving intoxicated driving is the cultural indoctrination about drinking driven by AA and Everybody Knows Inc.
Mostly: It’s BAD to drink by yourself. It’s BAD to drink at home unless it’s a social event.
Therefore, to drink one must go out and find a permanent social event (bar, nightclub, restaurant) and drink “properly.”
Then, of course, get home.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :smack:
Oh come on… Bawahahaha
I think there may be something to this. My boyfriend internally, subconsciously - whatever- still subscribes to drinking alone being the end all be all sign of alcoholism and absolutely will not drink by himself at home. He’s suffered numerous repercussions due to drinking, including but not limited to 2 DUIs in 10 years. Obviously, to me anyway, he’s in denial. He has stopped driving drunk since the last DUI(got it down to a reckless and got his license back) but will go absolutely ape shit if he can’t get to a bar, even if it means I have to drive.
Exactly. For all the problems alcohol itself causes, we have a really ucked fup cultural mindset about it, its abuse and those who ab/use it. i contend that the “AA mindset” causes more damage than it prevents or “cures” because it’s neither science- nor data-based and because it’s enormously selective in popular perception: 1) it’s the only way to get sober and 2) it works fabulously for those it works for. (Too bad about those who try it, fail because it’s got some serious limitations and/or doesn’t fit their personal model of the universe, and continue until their drinking problem fixes itself - those folks, we never hear from.)
So yes, I’ll stand behind that post. A goodly number of DUIs are from alcoholics, problem drinkers, and don’-wanna-be-a-problem drinkers who believe they can only drink “safely” in a public setting.
I used to drink and drive a lot when I was younger. I never thought about not driving. I don’t know how I survived, not to mention the fact that I never got a DUI. In 1973, I was stopped in Ann Arbor, with 3 buddies in the car, drunk as hell, and the A2 cops simply pointed to a Clock restaurant nearby, and suggested that we go get some breakfast. Scared, we spent the next 3 hours in the place, eating lots of pancakes and coffee. I think part of the cops reasoning, was that at that time, if they had put every drunk driver they found on a Friday night in jail, they would be full up by 5 pm. Especially in the summer.
One other thing, I always had a pretty nice car. I think guys driving heaps are more likely to get pulled over.
In some states intoxication is a defense to committing a crime. I wonder if anyone has used that defense against a drunk driving charge. 
“Your honor, I was so drunk I didn’t realize I was too drunk to drive”
Honestly. How do you expect people to get their car back to the house?:rolleyes:
*I’ve arrested hundreds of drunk drivers over the last 33 years. These are jokes.
Hmmmmmmm; I’d always thought the opposite, that a sports car attracts more attention. But maybe that just applies to your basic speeding ticket.
In any event, your post about getting pulled over is typical of what a lot of us of “a certain age” have experienced. By no means am I excusing anything, only saying that anyone coming up in the post MADD age and all its attendant legislature has been indoctrinated to understand how serious DUI is. When you grow up watching it and then doing it yourself without repercussions, its easier to justify / dismiss it. Sort of like smoking. I won’t believe anyone born after say, 1970, who says they just couldn’t fathom how ingesting burning chemicals and plant matter into their lungs could be harmful. Basically, there’s still a large part of the population for whom the seriousness of drunk driving hasn’t been sort of infused into their consciousness.