Like a cop is going to tell you otherwise. How many innocents spent decades in jail because police railroaded them.
Like I said earlier, whether they deserved to get off or not, get the best lawyer you can.
Impaired driving
- Thread starter cerevro
- Start date
Like I said earlier, whether they deserved to get off or not, get the best lawyer you can.
Sounds right to me. As I said in my above post when I got nailed by a drunk idiot, he showed up to court with a lawyer. When I showed up too, then didn't even bother going through the case with the judge. I was ready to go, but the lawyer declined to proceed and that was that. The judge said there is nothing more to do here and everyone left. I don't know what punishment he got, but looks like whomever he hired to represent him did nothing. I was expecting some kind of back and forth court thing like you see on TV, but it was nothing like it.big mistake you gotta pay for , nothing much else to say.... what I am interesting in knowing about is the legal process and fees...
an ex cop on my hockey team told us that its not worth paying the lawyers $10k or $15k , because they wont be able to reduce the punishment much...if anything at all.. he said to just go ahead and plead guilty and take the punishment, the lawyers will hammer you with fees that are not worth the end result.
anyone have info on if the lawyers are actually worth it?
They basically gave up the second they saw someone (me) showed up.
I hope you sued him to high heaven.Sounds right to me. As I said in my above post when I got nailed by a drunk idiot, he showed up to court with a lawyer. When I showed up too, then didn't even bother going through the case with the judge. I was ready to go, but the lawyer declined to proceed and that was that. The judge said there is nothing more to do here and everyone left. I don't know what punishment he got, but looks like whomever he hired to represent him did nothing. I was expecting some kind of back and forth court thing like you see on TV, but it was nothing like it.
They basically gave up the second they saw someone (me) showed up.
Nah. I wasn't hurt. And my car got fixed. So to me it was just a standard insurance form claim.I hope you sued him to high heaven.
Although I truly wonder what punishment he got. A slap on the wrist or something big. I'll never know. I don't even remember the guy's name anymore.
I also wonder what would have happened if I didn't show up, nor did any of the other people who got hit. It would just be the judge, the idiot and his lawyer. Maybe they would have gotten off scott free? I don't know.
I agree - way too many judgemental douchebags here. I don't have any sympathy for habitual drunk drivers (the ones who are responsible for the majority of drunk driving deaths) but have some compassion for people who make mistakes.Nice to see the support on this thread. Sheesh, what a bunch of judgmental douches.
Contrary to some opinions here, you must have legal representation. To not do so would be silly.
I have a few friends who have been nabbed in the past. Two on more than one occasion. They are back to driving now but paying hefty insurance rates >$10K per year.
It's an expensive mistake but one you should definitely learn from. If you don't then you won't see any sympathy from me. These days, there are so many other options than to drive impaired.
Good luck to you.
If it is your first offence and you have $20,000 to spend on a lawyer and "expert witness" (ie toxicologist) you have a pretty good chance of avoiding conviction. If it is not your first offence, I have no sympathy for you.
My former brother in law (restaurant manager with no prior charges) was charged a number of years ago, he got off because the cops did not give him the phone number for the lawyer he requested. I attended the trial and the cop lied under oath several times. The judge saw right through him and as a former lawyer - they don't take kindly to cops fucking with peoples rights when it comes to legal representation. He was lucky to avoid conviction but it still costed him 5K and that was ten years ago. Also know about someone who lost their licence for a year because their doctor believed he had a drinking problem and reported him. No charges or trial necessary.
Sadly groups like MADD have engaged in a campaign of alcohol and drug prohibition by creating a witchhunt atmosphere and removing any level of reasonable judgement when it comes to laying charges.
If we were really serious about reducing drunk driving death we would simply give longer sentences for repeat offenders.
Prohibition Returns! Teetotaling do-gooders attack your right to drink
http://reason.com/archives/2007/10/30/prohibition-returns
On a May night in 2005, Debra Bolton, a lawyer and single mom from the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, was leaving the Café Milano in Georgetown after socializing with some friends. She had driven her SUV only a few hundred yards before she was pulled over by D.C. police for driving with the headlights off. She told the officer the parking attendant at Café Milano probably had turned off her vehicle's automatic light feature.
Not mollified, the officer asked Bolton to step out of the car, walk in a straight line, recite the alphabet, stand on one foot, and count to 30. He checked her eyes for suspicious jerkiness and insisted on a breath test for alcohol.
The breath test revealed that Bolton's blood alcohol content (BAC) was 0.03 percent, a level a 120-pound woman could expect after drinking one glass of wine. It was well below the 0.08 percent limit that marks a driver as legally intoxicated in D.C. It was not low enough for the arresting officer, however. This middle-aged mother of two, who hadn't drunk to excess, who hadn't run a red light or run a stop, was arrested, handcuffed, and fingerprinted for an innocent mistake. She sat in a jail cell for hours and was finally released at 4:30 a.m. Bolton spent four court appearances and over $2,000 fighting a $400 ticket. She then spent a month fighting to get her license back after refusing to submit to the 12-week alcohol counseling program.
The arresting officer, inaptly named Dennis Fair, insists: "If you get behind the wheel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in D.C. We have zero tolerance....Anything above 0.01, we can arrest." Fair recognized that nearly everyone in D.C. was unaware of this zero tolerance policy. Still, he told The Washington Post, if "you don't know about it, then you're a victim of your own ignorance."
Bolton's arrest was not the result of a single cop's overzealousness. In 2004 D.C. police arrested 321 people with BACs below the legal limit of 0.08 percent for driving under the influence. The year before, the number was 409.
After the Bolton incident, James Klaunig, a toxicology expert at the Indiana University School of Medicine, told The Washington Post, "There's no way possible she failed a [sobriety] test from impairment with a .03 blood alcohol level." Fair had claimed that Bolton swayed and lost her balance when taking the sobriety test, triggering the breath test.
A BAC test, one of the main tools used by law enforcement to catch drunk drivers, determines how much alcohol is present in the bloodstream. A BAC of 0.08 percent, for instance, means 0.0008 of your blood is alcohol. At that level, though, you're hardly slurring your words or staggering.
In 2000 President Clinton signed a federal law aimed at pressuring states to lower their BAC limits from 0.1 percent to 0.08 percent. States that didn't go along were threatened with the loss of federal highway funds. Karolyn Nunnallee, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), predicted that a nationwide 0.08 percent standard "will save nearly 600 lives every year."
It hasn't worked out that way. In the July 2007 issue of Contemporary Economic Policy, Sam Houston State University economist Donald Freeman examines the most recent data available and concludes "there's no evidence that lowering the BAC limits...reduced fatality rates, either in total or in crashes likely to be alcohol related." This is true, he found, both in states that adopted a 0.08 percent BAC standard on their own and in states that did so under federal pressure.
During the last decade, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), alcohol contributed to between 16,000 and 17,000 traffic-related fatalities a year, about two-fifths of the total such deaths. It used to be a good deal worse. Back in 1982, three-fifths of all traffic related fatalities were attributed to alcohol. Since then, ad campaigns and education have raised public awareness about the dangers of driving smashed. States have instituted stricter punishment for drunk driving, and law enforcement officials are also better prepared to ferret out drunk drivers. A lot of the credit must be given to the hard work MADD did in educating the public about the menace of drinking and driving.
But the decline in alcohol-related deaths persisted only until 1997. Since then the vehicular death toll attributed to alcohol has remained stable at around 40 percent. This stagnation in drunk driving deaths has caused considerable consternation among activists and law enforcement officials. Lately, the fight against drunk driving has shifted from serious alcohol abusers with no regard for the law toward responsible drinkers.
Neoprohibitionists aim to muddle the distinction between drunk diving and driving after drinking any amount of alcohol. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) endorsed the idea at a Senate Environment and Public Committee hearing way back in 1997, contending that we "may wind up in this country going to zero tolerance, period." Former MADD President Katherine Prescott concurred, in a letter to the Chicago Tribune, where she stated "there is no safe blood alcohol, and for that reason responsible drinking means no drinking and driving."
Technically she's correct. Driving is never completely safe, and many things drivers commonly do-including speaking on a cell phone, talking to passengers, applying lipstick, eating a sandwich, drinking coffee, adjusting the radio, reprimanding the kids in the back seat, and daydreaming about weekend plans-can make it riskier. As states and cities have begun focusing on zero tolerance (or "driving while distracted" laws, which target the diversions laid out above) they are losing focus on the real threat, namely habitually drunk drivers.
Drinking is under attack these days in ways we haven't seen since the failed experiment with national alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. Indeed, for many neoprohibitionists, that experiment wasn't a failure at all, since it did cut alcohol consumption, which is all that matters. We can see that mentality today in policies that go beyond preventing drunk driving or punishing drunk drivers and aim to discourage drinking per se.
Founder's Remorse
Although alcohol nannies generally support zero tolerance, one dissenting voice doesn't. "I thought the emphasis on .08 laws was not where the emphasis should have been placed," Candace Lightner told the Los Angeles Times in 2002. "The majority of crashes occur with high blood-alcohol levels, the .15, .18 and .25 drinkers. Lowering the blood-alcohol concentration was not a solution to the alcohol problem."
Lightner's views can't be easily dismissed by anti-alcohol activists. In 1980 her 12-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a hit-and-run driver on a suburban street in Southern California. When the perpetrator was apprehended, he was drunk. It turned out he had been convicted of driving while intoxicated four previous times-once just days before he killed Lightner's daughter. Even after his fifth, fatal offense, he received just a two-year sentence and avoided prison by serving time in a work camp and a halfway house.
The light sentence her daughter's killer received spurred Lightner to "fight to make this needless homicide count for something positive in the years ahead." She did that by founding MADD in 1980. She changed the world for the better by raising public awareness about the serious nature of drunk driving and promoting tough legislation against the crime. Due to Lightner's potent grassroots work, aggressive campaigning, and popularization of the concept of designated drivers, MADD grew rapidly in its first five years. By 1985 it boasted 364 chapters, 600,000 members, and a $12.5 million budget.
Lightner has moved on from MADD, and since then has protested the shift from attacking drunk driving to attacking drinking in general. "I worry that the movement I helped create has lost direction," she told The Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1992. BAC legislation, she said, "ignores the real core of the problem....If we really want to save lives, let's go after the most dangerous drivers on the road." Lightner said MADD has become an organization far more "neoprohibitionist" than she had envisioned. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol," she said. "I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving."
http://reason.com/archives/2007/10/30/prohibition-returns
On a May night in 2005, Debra Bolton, a lawyer and single mom from the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, was leaving the Café Milano in Georgetown after socializing with some friends. She had driven her SUV only a few hundred yards before she was pulled over by D.C. police for driving with the headlights off. She told the officer the parking attendant at Café Milano probably had turned off her vehicle's automatic light feature.
Not mollified, the officer asked Bolton to step out of the car, walk in a straight line, recite the alphabet, stand on one foot, and count to 30. He checked her eyes for suspicious jerkiness and insisted on a breath test for alcohol.
The breath test revealed that Bolton's blood alcohol content (BAC) was 0.03 percent, a level a 120-pound woman could expect after drinking one glass of wine. It was well below the 0.08 percent limit that marks a driver as legally intoxicated in D.C. It was not low enough for the arresting officer, however. This middle-aged mother of two, who hadn't drunk to excess, who hadn't run a red light or run a stop, was arrested, handcuffed, and fingerprinted for an innocent mistake. She sat in a jail cell for hours and was finally released at 4:30 a.m. Bolton spent four court appearances and over $2,000 fighting a $400 ticket. She then spent a month fighting to get her license back after refusing to submit to the 12-week alcohol counseling program.
The arresting officer, inaptly named Dennis Fair, insists: "If you get behind the wheel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in D.C. We have zero tolerance....Anything above 0.01, we can arrest." Fair recognized that nearly everyone in D.C. was unaware of this zero tolerance policy. Still, he told The Washington Post, if "you don't know about it, then you're a victim of your own ignorance."
Bolton's arrest was not the result of a single cop's overzealousness. In 2004 D.C. police arrested 321 people with BACs below the legal limit of 0.08 percent for driving under the influence. The year before, the number was 409.
After the Bolton incident, James Klaunig, a toxicology expert at the Indiana University School of Medicine, told The Washington Post, "There's no way possible she failed a [sobriety] test from impairment with a .03 blood alcohol level." Fair had claimed that Bolton swayed and lost her balance when taking the sobriety test, triggering the breath test.
A BAC test, one of the main tools used by law enforcement to catch drunk drivers, determines how much alcohol is present in the bloodstream. A BAC of 0.08 percent, for instance, means 0.0008 of your blood is alcohol. At that level, though, you're hardly slurring your words or staggering.
In 2000 President Clinton signed a federal law aimed at pressuring states to lower their BAC limits from 0.1 percent to 0.08 percent. States that didn't go along were threatened with the loss of federal highway funds. Karolyn Nunnallee, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), predicted that a nationwide 0.08 percent standard "will save nearly 600 lives every year."
It hasn't worked out that way. In the July 2007 issue of Contemporary Economic Policy, Sam Houston State University economist Donald Freeman examines the most recent data available and concludes "there's no evidence that lowering the BAC limits...reduced fatality rates, either in total or in crashes likely to be alcohol related." This is true, he found, both in states that adopted a 0.08 percent BAC standard on their own and in states that did so under federal pressure.
During the last decade, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), alcohol contributed to between 16,000 and 17,000 traffic-related fatalities a year, about two-fifths of the total such deaths. It used to be a good deal worse. Back in 1982, three-fifths of all traffic related fatalities were attributed to alcohol. Since then, ad campaigns and education have raised public awareness about the dangers of driving smashed. States have instituted stricter punishment for drunk driving, and law enforcement officials are also better prepared to ferret out drunk drivers. A lot of the credit must be given to the hard work MADD did in educating the public about the menace of drinking and driving.
But the decline in alcohol-related deaths persisted only until 1997. Since then the vehicular death toll attributed to alcohol has remained stable at around 40 percent. This stagnation in drunk driving deaths has caused considerable consternation among activists and law enforcement officials. Lately, the fight against drunk driving has shifted from serious alcohol abusers with no regard for the law toward responsible drinkers.
Neoprohibitionists aim to muddle the distinction between drunk diving and driving after drinking any amount of alcohol. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) endorsed the idea at a Senate Environment and Public Committee hearing way back in 1997, contending that we "may wind up in this country going to zero tolerance, period." Former MADD President Katherine Prescott concurred, in a letter to the Chicago Tribune, where she stated "there is no safe blood alcohol, and for that reason responsible drinking means no drinking and driving."
Technically she's correct. Driving is never completely safe, and many things drivers commonly do-including speaking on a cell phone, talking to passengers, applying lipstick, eating a sandwich, drinking coffee, adjusting the radio, reprimanding the kids in the back seat, and daydreaming about weekend plans-can make it riskier. As states and cities have begun focusing on zero tolerance (or "driving while distracted" laws, which target the diversions laid out above) they are losing focus on the real threat, namely habitually drunk drivers.
Drinking is under attack these days in ways we haven't seen since the failed experiment with national alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. Indeed, for many neoprohibitionists, that experiment wasn't a failure at all, since it did cut alcohol consumption, which is all that matters. We can see that mentality today in policies that go beyond preventing drunk driving or punishing drunk drivers and aim to discourage drinking per se.
Founder's Remorse
Although alcohol nannies generally support zero tolerance, one dissenting voice doesn't. "I thought the emphasis on .08 laws was not where the emphasis should have been placed," Candace Lightner told the Los Angeles Times in 2002. "The majority of crashes occur with high blood-alcohol levels, the .15, .18 and .25 drinkers. Lowering the blood-alcohol concentration was not a solution to the alcohol problem."
Lightner's views can't be easily dismissed by anti-alcohol activists. In 1980 her 12-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a hit-and-run driver on a suburban street in Southern California. When the perpetrator was apprehended, he was drunk. It turned out he had been convicted of driving while intoxicated four previous times-once just days before he killed Lightner's daughter. Even after his fifth, fatal offense, he received just a two-year sentence and avoided prison by serving time in a work camp and a halfway house.
The light sentence her daughter's killer received spurred Lightner to "fight to make this needless homicide count for something positive in the years ahead." She did that by founding MADD in 1980. She changed the world for the better by raising public awareness about the serious nature of drunk driving and promoting tough legislation against the crime. Due to Lightner's potent grassroots work, aggressive campaigning, and popularization of the concept of designated drivers, MADD grew rapidly in its first five years. By 1985 it boasted 364 chapters, 600,000 members, and a $12.5 million budget.
Lightner has moved on from MADD, and since then has protested the shift from attacking drunk driving to attacking drinking in general. "I worry that the movement I helped create has lost direction," she told The Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1992. BAC legislation, she said, "ignores the real core of the problem....If we really want to save lives, let's go after the most dangerous drivers on the road." Lightner said MADD has become an organization far more "neoprohibitionist" than she had envisioned. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol," she said. "I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving."
(Page 2 of 3)
While it seems safe to assume that nearly every parent in the United States opposes drunk driving, the same cannot be said for MADD's efforts to stop drinking. Neither is every politician on board. In October 2005, responding to noisy complaints from local residents and negative national publicity, the D.C. Council decided, by a 9-3 vote, to abandon the zero tolerance policy that snared Debra Bolton. "D.C. is once again open for business," said council member Carol Schwartz. She said visitors "can come in and have a glass of wine and not be harassed or intimidated."
That's good news. Sadly, it's not the case everywhere.
Ignition Failure
More than 40 states require convicted drunk drivers to install ignition interlock devices: The driver breathes into a tube attached to the device, and if his blood alcohol concentration is measurable the vehicle won't start. Considering the high recidivism rate among drunk drivers, the interlock system may be a reasonable preventive measure for those who have proven they pose a danger to others. But what about people who have never been arrested, perhaps never even had a ticket, or who never drink under any circumstances? Can they be trusted to start their cars without taking a breath test?
In 2004 New Mexico state Rep. Ken Martinez (D-Grants) introduced a bill that would have forced every driver in his state to install an ignition interlock device. In addition to the indignity and inconvenience of breathing into a tube every time they start their cars, this requirement would cost drivers about $1,000 each to install the device, according to estimates by the states that require them. Incredibly, the bill breezed through the state's House of Representatives by a 45-to-22 vote. "Honestly, I put forward this bill to start some dialogue," Martinez told Wired.com. "And it became a very thought-provoking process....We want New Mexico to be a leader at using technology to curb some societal ills."
The New Mexico Senate, thankfully, let the bill die. But soon legislators in New York and Oklahoma were making noise about a universal interlock requirement. "If the public wants it and the data support it, it is literally possible that the epidemic of drunk driving could be solved where cars simply could not be operated by drunk drivers," Chuck Hurley, MADD's executive director, told USA Today in 2006. "What a great day that would be."
Pre-emptive War on Drunk Driving
Unfortunately, there is considerable precedent for such pre-emptive measures. In 2005 a Pennsylvania court rejected an appeal from a man whose driver's license was revoked by the state after he told doctors he knocked back more than a six-pack of beer a day. State law requires doctors to report any of a patient's physical or mental impairments if the doctors think it could compromise his ability to drive safely. Keith Emerich hadn't gotten in any legal trouble, related to drinking, driving, or anything else, and his job attendance was as exemplary. Yet a three-judge Commonwealth Court panel said the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was justified in taking away Emerich's license-not because he had driven while intoxicated but because he might.
Numerous anti-DUI law enforcement tactics now taken for granted are not only unduly invasive but ineffective. Consider roadblocks, a well-intentioned preventive measure that does little more than waste time and create pollution. This form of anticipatory law enforcement intimidates social drinkers and fails to address hardcore drunks, who often simply avoid roadblocks, turning on side streets when they see the flashing sideshow ahead. It targets those who aren't driving recklessly, haven't had a single drink, and have places to go.
According to numerous studies and reports dating back to 1987, the chance of getting picked up at a roadblock for being intoxicated is minuscule. MADD is nonetheless an enthusiastic supporter of sobriety checkpoints. It claims roadblocks reduce fatal alcohol-related crashes by as much as 20 percent. Yet recent fluctuations in such crashes have no correlation with states that do or don't use checkpoints.
During the Christmas season of 2003 in Fairfax County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington not far from the site of Debra Bolton's arrest, local police took pre-emptive law enforcement to an absurd extreme, launching a sting operation that targeted 20 local bars and restaurants. The mission: apprehend "drunk" patrons before they try to drive. These drinkers were far from their cars and in some cases did not even own cars. What type of evidence did the police use to measure intoxication? According to one law enforcement official involved in the sting, the determination could be made based on unflicked cigarette ashes, an excessive number of restroom visits, noisy cursing, or a wobbly walk.
The raids involved 10 cops in SWAT-like outfits. In an interview with The Reston Times, the general manager of one targeted establishment said "they tapped one lady on the shoulder-who was on her first drink and had just eaten dinner-to take her out on the sidewalk and give her a sobriety test. They told her she fit the description of a woman they had complaints about, and that they heard she was dancing topless."
In one raid, of the 18 drinkers tested for sobriety, nine were hauled to jail for public intoxication. When asked to explain the rationale for the raids, then-Fairfax County Police Chief J. Thomas Mange declared that you "can't be drunk in a bar." Where can you be drunk? "At home. Or at someone else's home. And stay there until you're not drunk."
Following the logic of such operations, watching television under the influence in your own home may soon be grounds for paramilitary raids. A Super Bowl party, a wedding shower, or a bachelor party can attract dozens of guests, many of whom will be drinking. Why not target those people as well? They have cars.
It's true that "public intoxication" is illegal. So is jaywalking. Police should use common sense, allocating their resources to protect citizens as efficiently as possible. It's hard to believe the most pressing problem in all of Northern Virginia that night was an inebriated and allegedly topless woman.
The immediate effect of hauling a few boozy bar patrons down to jail is insignificant. But the alcohol nannies are counting on the long-term impact: Once word gets out, people will be less inclined to get sloshed anywhere, anytime.
Such policies sometimes backfire. After the Fairfax County raids, the entire city council of Herndon, Virginia, criticized the practice of targeting law-abiding businesses and drinkers. "It is the unanimous opinion of the council that police overstepped their bounds and overreacted," one member said.
Yet numerous states and municipalities are experimenting with Fairfax-style intimidation. In 2005 the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission warned that it would be conducting "Sales to Intoxicated Person Stings" in various parts of the Lone Star State. "We believe responsible adults should drink responsibly," said Heather Hodges, a MADD victims advocate involved in planning the operation, in a MADD press release. "A bar is not intended to be a place to get fall-down drunk." In March 2006, one of the first sting operations was conducted in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication.
"It's killed our business," one Dallas bar owner told a local TV station. "People are scared to come out. I don't even drink, and I'm scared to go out, and it's not right. We don't want to put drunks on the road, but we don't want people to be afraid to do something that's legal. If they don't want people drinking, they should outlaw alcohol."
Bar None
MADD officials say they "strongly support" the right of alcohol-related crash victims to seek "financial recovery from establishments and servers who have irresponsibly provided alcohol to those who are intoxicated or to underage persons, or who serve past the point of intoxication individuals who then cause fatal or injurious crashes."
I'm not sure if any MADD leaders have been to a saloon lately, but the local Cheers-style tavern where everyone knows your name is all but dead. In large cities, working at a bar can mean serving alcohol to hundreds, if not thousands, of patrons each night. Once we train servers to double as psychics, MADD's liability principle will make sense. Until then, we can have mandatory breath tests for patrons. Once again, the neoprohibitionists stand for seemingly sensible policies that in practice make the sale and consumption of alcohol nearly impossible.
Most states have dram shop liability laws, which generally allow lawsuits to be brought by those injured by an inebriated person against the establishment which contributed to that person's intoxication. In Texas minors can sue a drinking establishment for their own injuries should they get their hands on enough alcohol to be intoxicated and hurt themselves. Under Illinois law, plaintiffs don't even have to prove a bartender was aware of the consumer's inebriation. In other states, dram shop liability extends to serving the "habitually intoxicated," who will be a cinch to identify for all those clairvoyant bartenders.
While it seems safe to assume that nearly every parent in the United States opposes drunk driving, the same cannot be said for MADD's efforts to stop drinking. Neither is every politician on board. In October 2005, responding to noisy complaints from local residents and negative national publicity, the D.C. Council decided, by a 9-3 vote, to abandon the zero tolerance policy that snared Debra Bolton. "D.C. is once again open for business," said council member Carol Schwartz. She said visitors "can come in and have a glass of wine and not be harassed or intimidated."
That's good news. Sadly, it's not the case everywhere.
Ignition Failure
More than 40 states require convicted drunk drivers to install ignition interlock devices: The driver breathes into a tube attached to the device, and if his blood alcohol concentration is measurable the vehicle won't start. Considering the high recidivism rate among drunk drivers, the interlock system may be a reasonable preventive measure for those who have proven they pose a danger to others. But what about people who have never been arrested, perhaps never even had a ticket, or who never drink under any circumstances? Can they be trusted to start their cars without taking a breath test?
In 2004 New Mexico state Rep. Ken Martinez (D-Grants) introduced a bill that would have forced every driver in his state to install an ignition interlock device. In addition to the indignity and inconvenience of breathing into a tube every time they start their cars, this requirement would cost drivers about $1,000 each to install the device, according to estimates by the states that require them. Incredibly, the bill breezed through the state's House of Representatives by a 45-to-22 vote. "Honestly, I put forward this bill to start some dialogue," Martinez told Wired.com. "And it became a very thought-provoking process....We want New Mexico to be a leader at using technology to curb some societal ills."
The New Mexico Senate, thankfully, let the bill die. But soon legislators in New York and Oklahoma were making noise about a universal interlock requirement. "If the public wants it and the data support it, it is literally possible that the epidemic of drunk driving could be solved where cars simply could not be operated by drunk drivers," Chuck Hurley, MADD's executive director, told USA Today in 2006. "What a great day that would be."
Pre-emptive War on Drunk Driving
Unfortunately, there is considerable precedent for such pre-emptive measures. In 2005 a Pennsylvania court rejected an appeal from a man whose driver's license was revoked by the state after he told doctors he knocked back more than a six-pack of beer a day. State law requires doctors to report any of a patient's physical or mental impairments if the doctors think it could compromise his ability to drive safely. Keith Emerich hadn't gotten in any legal trouble, related to drinking, driving, or anything else, and his job attendance was as exemplary. Yet a three-judge Commonwealth Court panel said the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was justified in taking away Emerich's license-not because he had driven while intoxicated but because he might.
Numerous anti-DUI law enforcement tactics now taken for granted are not only unduly invasive but ineffective. Consider roadblocks, a well-intentioned preventive measure that does little more than waste time and create pollution. This form of anticipatory law enforcement intimidates social drinkers and fails to address hardcore drunks, who often simply avoid roadblocks, turning on side streets when they see the flashing sideshow ahead. It targets those who aren't driving recklessly, haven't had a single drink, and have places to go.
According to numerous studies and reports dating back to 1987, the chance of getting picked up at a roadblock for being intoxicated is minuscule. MADD is nonetheless an enthusiastic supporter of sobriety checkpoints. It claims roadblocks reduce fatal alcohol-related crashes by as much as 20 percent. Yet recent fluctuations in such crashes have no correlation with states that do or don't use checkpoints.
During the Christmas season of 2003 in Fairfax County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington not far from the site of Debra Bolton's arrest, local police took pre-emptive law enforcement to an absurd extreme, launching a sting operation that targeted 20 local bars and restaurants. The mission: apprehend "drunk" patrons before they try to drive. These drinkers were far from their cars and in some cases did not even own cars. What type of evidence did the police use to measure intoxication? According to one law enforcement official involved in the sting, the determination could be made based on unflicked cigarette ashes, an excessive number of restroom visits, noisy cursing, or a wobbly walk.
The raids involved 10 cops in SWAT-like outfits. In an interview with The Reston Times, the general manager of one targeted establishment said "they tapped one lady on the shoulder-who was on her first drink and had just eaten dinner-to take her out on the sidewalk and give her a sobriety test. They told her she fit the description of a woman they had complaints about, and that they heard she was dancing topless."
In one raid, of the 18 drinkers tested for sobriety, nine were hauled to jail for public intoxication. When asked to explain the rationale for the raids, then-Fairfax County Police Chief J. Thomas Mange declared that you "can't be drunk in a bar." Where can you be drunk? "At home. Or at someone else's home. And stay there until you're not drunk."
Following the logic of such operations, watching television under the influence in your own home may soon be grounds for paramilitary raids. A Super Bowl party, a wedding shower, or a bachelor party can attract dozens of guests, many of whom will be drinking. Why not target those people as well? They have cars.
It's true that "public intoxication" is illegal. So is jaywalking. Police should use common sense, allocating their resources to protect citizens as efficiently as possible. It's hard to believe the most pressing problem in all of Northern Virginia that night was an inebriated and allegedly topless woman.
The immediate effect of hauling a few boozy bar patrons down to jail is insignificant. But the alcohol nannies are counting on the long-term impact: Once word gets out, people will be less inclined to get sloshed anywhere, anytime.
Such policies sometimes backfire. After the Fairfax County raids, the entire city council of Herndon, Virginia, criticized the practice of targeting law-abiding businesses and drinkers. "It is the unanimous opinion of the council that police overstepped their bounds and overreacted," one member said.
Yet numerous states and municipalities are experimenting with Fairfax-style intimidation. In 2005 the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission warned that it would be conducting "Sales to Intoxicated Person Stings" in various parts of the Lone Star State. "We believe responsible adults should drink responsibly," said Heather Hodges, a MADD victims advocate involved in planning the operation, in a MADD press release. "A bar is not intended to be a place to get fall-down drunk." In March 2006, one of the first sting operations was conducted in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication.
"It's killed our business," one Dallas bar owner told a local TV station. "People are scared to come out. I don't even drink, and I'm scared to go out, and it's not right. We don't want to put drunks on the road, but we don't want people to be afraid to do something that's legal. If they don't want people drinking, they should outlaw alcohol."
Bar None
MADD officials say they "strongly support" the right of alcohol-related crash victims to seek "financial recovery from establishments and servers who have irresponsibly provided alcohol to those who are intoxicated or to underage persons, or who serve past the point of intoxication individuals who then cause fatal or injurious crashes."
I'm not sure if any MADD leaders have been to a saloon lately, but the local Cheers-style tavern where everyone knows your name is all but dead. In large cities, working at a bar can mean serving alcohol to hundreds, if not thousands, of patrons each night. Once we train servers to double as psychics, MADD's liability principle will make sense. Until then, we can have mandatory breath tests for patrons. Once again, the neoprohibitionists stand for seemingly sensible policies that in practice make the sale and consumption of alcohol nearly impossible.
Most states have dram shop liability laws, which generally allow lawsuits to be brought by those injured by an inebriated person against the establishment which contributed to that person's intoxication. In Texas minors can sue a drinking establishment for their own injuries should they get their hands on enough alcohol to be intoxicated and hurt themselves. Under Illinois law, plaintiffs don't even have to prove a bartender was aware of the consumer's inebriation. In other states, dram shop liability extends to serving the "habitually intoxicated," who will be a cinch to identify for all those clairvoyant bartenders.
(Page 3 of 3)
If getting drunk in a bar is to be forbidden, it makes sense to ban happy hour. Back in 1984, the Massachusetts legislature banned the practice of offering cheaper drinks during the traditional "happy hours" of 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.-or any other time. That law kicked off a wave of happy hour restrictions around the country. From Ohio, where bars were compelled to end two-for-the-price-of-one premiums at 9 p.m., to West Virginia, where bars must have food available during happy hours, to Mississippi and Oregon, where happy hours are still allowed but cannot be advertised, happiness is being snatched from law-abiding Americans across the land.
Such laws often have unintended consequences. When a 1990 Illinois law banning "happy hours" took effect, bars came up with a creative solution, changing "happy hours" to the even better "happy days." A "happy day" means reduced prices on drinks for the entire day, since the price of drinks cannot be legally changed during any one business day.
On its website, MADD condemns "Practices Which Encourage Excessive Alcohol Consumption," including happy hours, ladies' nights, and any fluctuations in prices that bring in consumers during what are usually slow hours. The group calls upon the "hospitality industry to voluntarily end all practices associated with excessive alcohol consumption." As a backup, MADD also supports the legal prohibition of such practices in all 50 states.
Sometimes bars want the state to help stop practices consumers love. Bar crawling is common in cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Friends, typically in their 20s and 30s, get together and go from bar to bar. To attract such groups, some bars offer unlimited drinks for a fixed price. In 1999 New York Gov. George Pataki signed into law a ban of the practice, asserting that it encourages "irresponsible binge-drinking."
Even if that's true, adult binge drinking is none of Pataki's business, since adults have the right to get smashed as long as they don't hurt anyone else. But bar and nightclub owners didn't mind when Albany prevented them from engaging in this sort of expensive price war. The pubs' chief trade group lobbied strenuously to get the state to stop the practice.
Alcohol nannies also have targeted sporting arenas, blaming alcohol for every brawl or other instance of misconduct by fans. George Hacker, director of alcohol studies at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, suggests several solutions, including a ban on selling beer in the stands, a reduction in the size of a beer serving from 16 to 10 ounces, a 3.2 percent limit on beer alcohol content, the elimination of beer signs, and aggressive police identification of "people who are obviously intoxicated." Although brawls occur at a tiny percentage of sporting events, alcohol nannies latch onto them as an excuse to interfere with the enjoyment of millions of fans.
Drinking may not be a prerequisite for a happy life, but it's a ritual most Americans have enjoyed as long as the nation has existed, and harmlessly so in the overwhelming majority of cases. Although I'm not an exceptionally heavy drinker, I can't, and don't want to, imagine a life without alcohol. As long as I'm not endangering anyone else, I shouldn't have to.
David Harsanyi, a columnist at the Denver Post, is the author of Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children, from which this article is adapted. Published by Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc. © Copyright 2007 by David Harsanyi.
If getting drunk in a bar is to be forbidden, it makes sense to ban happy hour. Back in 1984, the Massachusetts legislature banned the practice of offering cheaper drinks during the traditional "happy hours" of 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.-or any other time. That law kicked off a wave of happy hour restrictions around the country. From Ohio, where bars were compelled to end two-for-the-price-of-one premiums at 9 p.m., to West Virginia, where bars must have food available during happy hours, to Mississippi and Oregon, where happy hours are still allowed but cannot be advertised, happiness is being snatched from law-abiding Americans across the land.
Such laws often have unintended consequences. When a 1990 Illinois law banning "happy hours" took effect, bars came up with a creative solution, changing "happy hours" to the even better "happy days." A "happy day" means reduced prices on drinks for the entire day, since the price of drinks cannot be legally changed during any one business day.
On its website, MADD condemns "Practices Which Encourage Excessive Alcohol Consumption," including happy hours, ladies' nights, and any fluctuations in prices that bring in consumers during what are usually slow hours. The group calls upon the "hospitality industry to voluntarily end all practices associated with excessive alcohol consumption." As a backup, MADD also supports the legal prohibition of such practices in all 50 states.
Sometimes bars want the state to help stop practices consumers love. Bar crawling is common in cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Friends, typically in their 20s and 30s, get together and go from bar to bar. To attract such groups, some bars offer unlimited drinks for a fixed price. In 1999 New York Gov. George Pataki signed into law a ban of the practice, asserting that it encourages "irresponsible binge-drinking."
Even if that's true, adult binge drinking is none of Pataki's business, since adults have the right to get smashed as long as they don't hurt anyone else. But bar and nightclub owners didn't mind when Albany prevented them from engaging in this sort of expensive price war. The pubs' chief trade group lobbied strenuously to get the state to stop the practice.
Alcohol nannies also have targeted sporting arenas, blaming alcohol for every brawl or other instance of misconduct by fans. George Hacker, director of alcohol studies at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, suggests several solutions, including a ban on selling beer in the stands, a reduction in the size of a beer serving from 16 to 10 ounces, a 3.2 percent limit on beer alcohol content, the elimination of beer signs, and aggressive police identification of "people who are obviously intoxicated." Although brawls occur at a tiny percentage of sporting events, alcohol nannies latch onto them as an excuse to interfere with the enjoyment of millions of fans.
Drinking may not be a prerequisite for a happy life, but it's a ritual most Americans have enjoyed as long as the nation has existed, and harmlessly so in the overwhelming majority of cases. Although I'm not an exceptionally heavy drinker, I can't, and don't want to, imagine a life without alcohol. As long as I'm not endangering anyone else, I shouldn't have to.
David Harsanyi, a columnist at the Denver Post, is the author of Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children, from which this article is adapted. Published by Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc. © Copyright 2007 by David Harsanyi.
And I support them.Sadly groups like MADD have engaged in a campaign of alcohol and drug prohibition by creating a witchhunt atmosphere and removing any level of reasonable judgement when it comes to laying charges.
If it wasn't for drunk idiots driving on the road and getting into accidents, there would be no such thing as MADD. There would be no police RIDE checkpoints and no miserable drinking and driving TV ads either. But since there's lots of tipsy drivers, there are organizations out there trying to protect public safety.
All MADD cares about is for drivers to be level headed and responsible while driving because cars can kill. They've never said don't drink at home in the safety of your own living room watching TV. What they care about is the combo of drinking AND driving.
MADD chapter president got busted for DUI lmao: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/madd-chapter-president-charged-with-impaired-driving-resigns-1.2503162The Crown Attorney in Ottawa just got convicted of DUI. Gotta love it.
http://www.alcoholfacts.org/CrashCourseOnMADD.htmlAnd I support them.
If it wasn't for drunk idiots driving on the road and getting into accidents, there would be no such thing as MADD. There would be no police RIDE checkpoints and no miserable drinking and driving TV ads either. But since there's lots of tipsy drivers, there are organizations out there trying to protect public safety.
All MADD cares about is for drivers to be level headed and responsible while driving because cars can kill. They've never said don't drink at home in the safety of your own living room watching TV. What they care about is the combo of drinking AND driving.
Conclusion
Within a period of two decades, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has unfortunately degenerated from a public service organization devoted to reducing traffic fatalities into an anti-alcohol bureaucracy largely focused on raising ever more money for itself. 144
Mothers Against Drunk Driving: A Crash Course in MADD
by David J. Hanson, Ph.D.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was founded in 1980 by Candy Lightner, whose daughter was tragically killed by a drunk driver who was a repeat offender. The goal of MADD was to reduce drunk driving traffic fatalities and the organization has been highly effective in raising public disapproval of drunk driving. The proportion of traffic fatalities that are alcohol-related has dropped dramatically, in part because of MADD's good efforts. For more, visit Drinking and Driving.
I. The Drunken Driving Problem
MADD recognizes that the problem of drunken driving has now largely been reduced to a "hard core of alcoholics who do not respond to public appeal." 1 Most drivers who have had something to drink have low blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and few are involved in fatal accidents or crashes. 2 On the other hand, while only a few drivers have BAC's higher than .15, many of those drivers have fatal crashes. 3 For example, almost half of fatally injured drunk drivers have a BAC of .16 (which is twice the legal limit) or higher. 4
The biggest problem in reducing drunk driving fatalities now consists of the hard core of alcoholic drivers who repeatedly drive with BAC's of .15 or higher. But MADD has now decided to go after social drinkers and to eliminate driving after drinking any amount of alcohol beverage. This change appears to reflect the influence of a growing neo-prohibitionist movement within MADD.
The founding president of MADD, Candy Lightner, left in disgust from the organization that she herself created because of its change in goals. "It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned," she says. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving." 5 Ms. Lightner has emphasized the importance of distinguishing between alcohol and drinking on one hand and drunk driving on the other. 6
Ms. Lightner has apparently put her finger on the problem when she says that if MADD really wants to save lives, it will go after the real problem drivers. 7 Instead, it has become temperance-oriented.
II. MADD’s Goal: Is it Neo-Prohibitionist?
Mothers Against Drunk Driving stigmatizes light or moderate alcohol consumption, even when it isn't associated with either being underage or driving. For example:
MADD sells a graphic showing two empty glasses of alcohol surrounded by the words assault, drowning, burns, rape and suicide.
MADD sells a graphic that equates beer with heroin by depicting a beer bottle as a drug syringe.
MADD sells a television ad insisting that "if you think there's a difference" between heroin and alcohol, "you're dead wrong." 8
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has clearly become not simply anti-drunk driving or even anti-impaired driving, but anti-alcohol. MADD’s temperance orientation expresses itself in many ways, as seen in Is MADD Neo-Prohibitionist?
III. MADD’s Use of “Science”
Unfortunately, Mothers Against Drunk Driving often uses junk science to promote its agenda. For example, a very brief three-page study by MADD former vice president Ralph Hingson made a statistical assertion in support of MADD’s policy agenda that the U.S. Department of Transportation had been unable to establish after 15 years of careful research. Even after the General U.S. Accounting Office issued a report to Congress insisting that the Hingson claim was "unfounded," MADD continues to quote the unsubstantiated estimate as scientific fact. 9
To learn more about MADD’s misuse science to promote its agenda, visit MADD, Junk Science, and the Misuse of Science.
IV. MADD’s Focus on Money and Fund-Raising
Non-profit organizations typically permit their chapters to keep most of the money they raise. For example, Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID) chapters get to keep 90% of all funds they raise. But MADD claims ownership of every penny raised by all its many chapters. Thus, after raising $129,000 locally and turning it all over as MADD demands, the Las Vegas chapter received a check from the national office for $1.29 (one dollar and twenty nine cents) as its share. 10 MADD's "focus is on greed," said the chapter President, who reported "I've never seen such bloodsuckers!" 11
All items in some issues of Mothers Against Drunk Driving's MADD E-Newsletter are devoted entirely to MADD's primary mission of fund-raising. There are no pleas for sober driving, no calls for more sobriety checkpoints, no news reports, no petitions for legislation to reduce impaired driving and improve traffic safety ---- just fund-raising appeals. Most issues of the MADD E-Newsletter usually have at least one or two items not devoted to soliciting money.
MADD's national web site lists all local chapters. Each listing is followed by a plea to "Donate Locally." This is clearly deceptive because it implies that funds given to local chapters will be handled differently than funds given to the national office. In reality, all funds, wherever donated, must go directly and completely to the national office for use as it sees fit.
To learn more about MADD’s focus on money and fund-raising, visit MADD’s Money isn’t Mad Money.
V. MADD’s View of Citizens’ Constitutional Rights
Mothers Against Drunk Driving is fueled by anger and grief. In fact, its original name was Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. 12 As a leading researcher on drunk driving has observed, MADD is focused on
the demand for justice or vengeance on the group that took the lives of friends and children. This warrants harsh punishment, whether or not deterrence is achieved. It also leads to rejection or a lack of enthusiasm for policies that promise to save lives of crash victims without regard for the cause of an accident. 13
A case in point. Research suggests that using a cell phone while driving may cause more traffic fatalities than driving drunk. But when a MADD official was asked how traffic fatality statistics involving cell phone use compared to those involving drunk drivers, he tellingly replied "I have absolutely no idea, nor do I care." 14 The reason appears to be that MADD sees other causes of traffic accidents to be potential competitors for money and attention. 15
The president of MADD Canada was outraged and publicly blasted a judge who sentenced a repeat drunk driver to restrictions, including electronically-monitored severe limits on his mobility on condition he remain in treatment for his alcoholism. The driver had maintained a long period of sobriety before experiencing a relapse. In handing down the sentence, the judge cited scientific research demonstrating that severe punishments are ineffective in deterring drunk driving by alcoholics. Therefore, she developed a sentence designed to reinforce the long-term effectiveness of his rehabilitation.
MADD Canada strongly disagreed with the judge and wanted severe punishment rather than rehabilitation. 16
MADD’s anger and grief often lead it to disregard constitutional rights. To learn more about MADD’s stance toward human or civil rights, visit MADD and Citizens’ Constitutional Rights.
Summary
MADD's original goal was an enormously important one -- to reduce drunk driving and the deaths and injuries that it causes. However, as its founder observed, the group has become neo-prohibitionist. As a former MADD chapter president explains, it's "a big corporation" and "all about money." Unfortunately, what began as a dedicated volunteer group of caring women has become a largely indifferent self-serving bureaucracy.
It will cost you but I if it was marginal I hope you get off and are more careful the next time. IMHO the cost and process is penalty enough. If you were shit faced then you deserve to get convicted.Gentlemen:
Does anyone has any story regarding impaired driving charges?
Going through that and would like to hear some thoughts from the pals here.
Thanks.
I have expressed this point MANY TIMES only to have shrill prohibitionists like FUJI etc scream like stuck pigs. No matter how much data you throw at them they just cannot grasp the truth. As a result lots of people that commit LOW RISK misdemeanors end up with criminal convictions, and resources that should be spent to SOLVE the issue get misallocated ruining the lives of people that pose only a small risk to society.
http://www.alcoholfacts.org/CrashCourseOnMADD.html
Conclusion
Within a period of two decades, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has unfortunately degenerated from a public service organization devoted to reducing traffic fatalities into an anti-alcohol bureaucracy largely focused on raising ever more money for itself. 144
Mothers Against Drunk Driving: A Crash Course in MADD
by David J. Hanson, Ph.D.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was founded in 1980 by Candy Lightner, whose daughter was tragically killed by a drunk driver who was a repeat offender. The goal of MADD was to reduce drunk driving traffic fatalities and the organization has been highly effective in raising public disapproval of drunk driving. The proportion of traffic fatalities that are alcohol-related has dropped dramatically, in part because of MADD's good efforts. For more, visit Drinking and Driving.
I. The Drunken Driving Problem
MADD recognizes that the problem of drunken driving has now largely been reduced to a "hard core of alcoholics who do not respond to public appeal." 1 Most drivers who have had something to drink have low blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and few are involved in fatal accidents or crashes. 2 On the other hand, while only a few drivers have BAC's higher than .15, many of those drivers have fatal crashes. 3 For example, almost half of fatally injured drunk drivers have a BAC of .16 (which is twice the legal limit) or higher. 4
The biggest problem in reducing drunk driving fatalities now consists of the hard core of alcoholic drivers who repeatedly drive with BAC's of .15 or higher. But MADD has now decided to go after social drinkers and to eliminate driving after drinking any amount of alcohol beverage. This change appears to reflect the influence of a growing neo-prohibitionist movement within MADD.
The founding president of MADD, Candy Lightner, left in disgust from the organization that she herself created because of its change in goals. "It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned," she says. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving." 5 Ms. Lightner has emphasized the importance of distinguishing between alcohol and drinking on one hand and drunk driving on the other. 6
Ms. Lightner has apparently put her finger on the problem when she says that if MADD really wants to save lives, it will go after the real problem drivers. 7 Instead, it has become temperance-oriented.
II. MADD’s Goal: Is it Neo-Prohibitionist?
Mothers Against Drunk Driving stigmatizes light or moderate alcohol consumption, even when it isn't associated with either being underage or driving. For example:
MADD sells a graphic showing two empty glasses of alcohol surrounded by the words assault, drowning, burns, rape and suicide.
MADD sells a graphic that equates beer with heroin by depicting a beer bottle as a drug syringe.
MADD sells a television ad insisting that "if you think there's a difference" between heroin and alcohol, "you're dead wrong." 8
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has clearly become not simply anti-drunk driving or even anti-impaired driving, but anti-alcohol. MADD’s temperance orientation expresses itself in many ways, as seen in Is MADD Neo-Prohibitionist?
III. MADD’s Use of “Science”
Unfortunately, Mothers Against Drunk Driving often uses junk science to promote its agenda. For example, a very brief three-page study by MADD former vice president Ralph Hingson made a statistical assertion in support of MADD’s policy agenda that the U.S. Department of Transportation had been unable to establish after 15 years of careful research. Even after the General U.S. Accounting Office issued a report to Congress insisting that the Hingson claim was "unfounded," MADD continues to quote the unsubstantiated estimate as scientific fact. 9
To learn more about MADD’s misuse science to promote its agenda, visit MADD, Junk Science, and the Misuse of Science.
IV. MADD’s Focus on Money and Fund-Raising
Non-profit organizations typically permit their chapters to keep most of the money they raise. For example, Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID) chapters get to keep 90% of all funds they raise. But MADD claims ownership of every penny raised by all its many chapters. Thus, after raising $129,000 locally and turning it all over as MADD demands, the Las Vegas chapter received a check from the national office for $1.29 (one dollar and twenty nine cents) as its share. 10 MADD's "focus is on greed," said the chapter President, who reported "I've never seen such bloodsuckers!" 11
All items in some issues of Mothers Against Drunk Driving's MADD E-Newsletter are devoted entirely to MADD's primary mission of fund-raising. There are no pleas for sober driving, no calls for more sobriety checkpoints, no news reports, no petitions for legislation to reduce impaired driving and improve traffic safety ---- just fund-raising appeals. Most issues of the MADD E-Newsletter usually have at least one or two items not devoted to soliciting money.
MADD's national web site lists all local chapters. Each listing is followed by a plea to "Donate Locally." This is clearly deceptive because it implies that funds given to local chapters will be handled differently than funds given to the national office. In reality, all funds, wherever donated, must go directly and completely to the national office for use as it sees fit.
To learn more about MADD’s focus on money and fund-raising, visit MADD’s Money isn’t Mad Money.
V. MADD’s View of Citizens’ Constitutional Rights
Mothers Against Drunk Driving is fueled by anger and grief. In fact, its original name was Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. 12 As a leading researcher on drunk driving has observed, MADD is focused on
the demand for justice or vengeance on the group that took the lives of friends and children. This warrants harsh punishment, whether or not deterrence is achieved. It also leads to rejection or a lack of enthusiasm for policies that promise to save lives of crash victims without regard for the cause of an accident. 13
A case in point. Research suggests that using a cell phone while driving may cause more traffic fatalities than driving drunk. But when a MADD official was asked how traffic fatality statistics involving cell phone use compared to those involving drunk drivers, he tellingly replied "I have absolutely no idea, nor do I care." 14 The reason appears to be that MADD sees other causes of traffic accidents to be potential competitors for money and attention. 15
The president of MADD Canada was outraged and publicly blasted a judge who sentenced a repeat drunk driver to restrictions, including electronically-monitored severe limits on his mobility on condition he remain in treatment for his alcoholism. The driver had maintained a long period of sobriety before experiencing a relapse. In handing down the sentence, the judge cited scientific research demonstrating that severe punishments are ineffective in deterring drunk driving by alcoholics. Therefore, she developed a sentence designed to reinforce the long-term effectiveness of his rehabilitation.
MADD Canada strongly disagreed with the judge and wanted severe punishment rather than rehabilitation. 16
MADD’s anger and grief often lead it to disregard constitutional rights. To learn more about MADD’s stance toward human or civil rights, visit MADD and Citizens’ Constitutional Rights.
Summary
MADD's original goal was an enormously important one -- to reduce drunk driving and the deaths and injuries that it causes. However, as its founder observed, the group has become neo-prohibitionist. As a former MADD chapter president explains, it's "a big corporation" and "all about money." Unfortunately, what began as a dedicated volunteer group of caring women has become a largely indifferent self-serving bureaucracy.
Agreed - a huge waste of police and court resources. Imagine if they spent all that time putting violent criminals or fraud artists in jail. Perhaps we should try to protecting people's rights instead of violating them.I have expressed this point MANY TIMES only to have shrill prohibitionists like FUJI etc scream like stuck pigs. No matter how much data you throw at them they just cannot grasp the truth. As a result lots of people that commit LOW RISK misdemeanors end up with criminal convictions, and resources that should be spent to SOLVE the issue get misallocated ruining the lives of people that pose only a small risk to society.
Best thing to do with trolls like him is to ignore them. He is without question one of the most delusional know it alls on the board. An expert on everything and anything. How and why he has not been permanently banned is beyond me. Ironically, posts like ours only seem to encourage him.
One of our employees years ago got caught with a DUI (I think from RIDE). I found him a criminal lawyer (my old school chum). At the time, he charged him $5,000 instead of his usual $7,000. Being the first offence with no injuries or damage caused, I think you get off with a minimal penalty. However, this was maybe 10 years ago or more. Things might have changed.
Another employee (both of these guys were NOT driving company vehicles), had his license suspended for two years.
Get a criminal lawyer but if you go to a DUI specialist, the cost will be more. Shop and good luck, but don't be stupid again.
P.S. People are quick to judge here without knowing all the details. I had a small cocktail once. Drove about an hour later. Encountered a RIDE stop that looked unattended (female cop was off to the side and told me they were finishing up) and VOLUNTEERED (I'm stupid honest sometimes) that I was at a concert and had a cocktail with my date, when the cop asked me. I blew the Breathalyzer twice which gave a reading of 0.00 % BAC (I couldn't believe it myself). But it was a lesson learned and I thanked God but I'd never do that again.
Another employee (both of these guys were NOT driving company vehicles), had his license suspended for two years.
Get a criminal lawyer but if you go to a DUI specialist, the cost will be more. Shop and good luck, but don't be stupid again.
P.S. People are quick to judge here without knowing all the details. I had a small cocktail once. Drove about an hour later. Encountered a RIDE stop that looked unattended (female cop was off to the side and told me they were finishing up) and VOLUNTEERED (I'm stupid honest sometimes) that I was at a concert and had a cocktail with my date, when the cop asked me. I blew the Breathalyzer twice which gave a reading of 0.00 % BAC (I couldn't believe it myself). But it was a lesson learned and I thanked God but I'd never do that again.
I agree with Lucky Blue and nottyboi about MADD. It's gotten off course. If you say you have a glass of wine for dinner at a RIDE, they will ask you to blow and if you refuse, it's almost as worse a charge. Social drinking is condemned it seems.
I remember an age where they would say "Drink Responsibly", but they don't say that anymore. The limit is down to 0.05 for a lesser charge.
I remember an age where they would say "Drink Responsibly", but they don't say that anymore. The limit is down to 0.05 for a lesser charge.
There should be no sympathy for first time offenders. You make a conscious decision on how much you are going to drink before you get behind the wheel. A drunk driver is just as dangerous as someone with a gun who doesn't use it responsibly.
Over 130 deaths occurred from drunk driving every year from 2008 to 2012. I would bet my paycheque that half were caused by people never caught for drinking and driving before.
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rd7-rr7/p6.html
Drinking and driving is such a problem, that provinces have introduced legislation to bypass the court system.
The legislation has dropped the number of fatalities by over 50% in British Columbia, and has been deemed constitutional.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1169120/b...nd-driving-laws-reduce-deaths-by-52-per-cent/
Over 130 deaths occurred from drunk driving every year from 2008 to 2012. I would bet my paycheque that half were caused by people never caught for drinking and driving before.
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rd7-rr7/p6.html
Drinking and driving is such a problem, that provinces have introduced legislation to bypass the court system.
The legislation has dropped the number of fatalities by over 50% in British Columbia, and has been deemed constitutional.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1169120/b...nd-driving-laws-reduce-deaths-by-52-per-cent/
People don't realize how much you have to drink to reach .05. One glass of wine simply won't do it.I agree with Lucky Blue and nottyboi about MADD. It's gotten off course. If you say you have a glass of wine for dinner at a RIDE, they will ask you to blow and if you refuse, it's almost as worse a charge. Social drinking is condemned it seems.
I remember an age where they would say "Drink Responsibly", but they don't say that anymore. The limit is down to 0.05 for a lesser charge.
Blowing over .05 in B.C. will only get you off the road for 24 hours. You have to blow over .080 to get into Criminal Code drunk.
http://www.abca.wv.gov/enforcement/Documents/BAC Chart.pdf
Refusal is the same as being over. Cops love getting people who refuse. It's easier for them than if you blow. There's no recourse for refusing and it's been held up by the Supreme Court, so you might as well blow and take your chances.
Have you considered not driving when impaired?Gentlemen:
Does anyone has any story regarding impaired driving charges?
Going through that and would like to hear some thoughts from the pals here.
Thanks.
