This law will allegedly save 500 lives a year.

REALITY CHECK: .08 is usually not drunk. The state may say it is, but anyone who has drunk before knows it takes more than that to really alter judgment.

What this law WILL lead to is more people being stopped by cops, more harrassment, more inconvenience, more BULLSHIT from law enforcement officials.

Isn't it fun when you're the desginated driver and a cop stops your car because he sees you leaving a bar? I love that.

More TRUTH: You can always refuse the breathalyzer test. Even if you have puke down your shirt, and you pass out at a red light, and can't even talk to the cop, you can refuse the test. While you may get your license suspended, you cannot be convicted of DWI. Your BAC could be .33, and no conviction.

More FACTS: Your roadside breathalyzer does not have legal standing. Only your reading at the police station can be used against you. Here in NY, legal limit is currently .10. The cops won't even take anyone in unless they are .14 or so, because it will decrease between roadside and at the station.

Does the 21 drinking age stop underagers from drinking? No. So don't look for this lawto do anything. This is a distant relative of the "20-year sentence for cocaine possession" law. Is the drug war working? Neither will this.

The Skywalker discourages DWI but believs that education, not legislation, is the best weapon against drinking and driving.

If you are going to drink even one drink you do not need to be driving. For example, a friend of a fellow police officer was killed two years ago on a sunday morning after her shift was over when a drunk driver ran a stop light and center punched her car on the driver's side. She was killed instantly.

He didn't even blow over 0.1 if I remember correctly.

We have way too many friends and wives and husbands to ever be drinking and driving.

I pulled a guy over once his driving indicated he was highly intoxicated. To my surprise he passed all the field sobriety tests, except for a pbt. Now the funny thing is he had a temporary license from another county that he got 30 days earlier for dui and get this, his wife was stone sober and sitting next to him when I pulled them over. He blew something like .15 or better on the breathelizer.

Where do we draw the line. We could very say that any amount is against the law. Especially with so many choices in being able to not drive drunk.

If we only cracked down on illegal gun use we this way we could all carry firearms and have even less homicide rates and attacks with firearms than we do now.

As Chesty said there are a lot more people involved in accidents at that .08 area because they don't really realize they are impaired.

I have been a police officer/detective for 14 years now and can't count the number of fatal car crashes I have investigated. 75-80% of these were not falling down drunk, but in that .06 - .12 range that most people don't even think is dangerous or feel impaired.

.08% isn't shit, after taking a two year old to the funeral home and photographing it's injuries for evidence most people would probably vote for a .04%, at least for a while.

Until you've actually seen what drunk driving does to people and families don't critize what some lawmakers are trying to do to protect people. There are some stupid laws out there that really need to be recinded and have no place in today's society. DUII laws at this point aren't one of them.

I agree with Chesty in that an officer can't just stop any car without pc, thats probable cause, not probably cause. And if you are impaired, and an officer can show that through field sobriety tests the amount you blow doesn't matter. Otherwise those drunk drivers who put themselves into the hospital and are unable to blow would just get away.

Last of all, yes you can refuse to blow on the intoxilyzer. In Oregon that will net you a one year suspension for refusing instead of three months if you fail. 1st time offenders. The evidence the officers gathered to make the arrest will still stand and will speak for itself in court. I've only lost one duii case in 14 years, so I must know a little something about it.

Hey Chesty, Semper Fi Mac. USMC 1981-1988

God forbid that a cop stops someone leaving a bar. We can't have that type of harassment. We can't have that cop out there trying to save a life or a family, now can we?

REALITY CHECK: If you don't think a drunk will ever take a life of someone you know, guess again.

.08 for an average 120lb woman is 3 beers in around an hour two

I'm 195, so I'm assuming I would need around 5, maybe its just me, but 5 beers in around an hour makes me feeling pretty good, although I could easily drive home, It still impairs my judgement.

But I do agree that this law is pointless, people won't be thinking about their BAL level when they are getting hammered at a bar. It will just lock up more people assuming they fail a sobreity test with 4 beers in them. I find this hard to do, my brother passed one after having 10+ beers.

Going back to my old post, I believe that your judment can be controlled under the infleunce, this doesn't apply if your are about .20 or something like that. For example, when drunks get pulled over, or are confronted by a cop do you notice how they can "turn sober" well, physically they are still above the limit, but mentally they are just fine to drive because they were confronted with reality and scared shitless. When you watch "real stories of the highway patrol" and see some drunk fall out of his car then tell the cop he loves him, do you think he is around .08?? please.

Maybe its just me, but when I see an accident on tv, I hear that the driver was more than twice the legal limit, so this means, I would have to drink a 12 pack by myself within a couple of hours, then go drive, these are the drunks that are killing everyone, not the .08, the law is pointless. Of course I know that people have probably been killed by .08 or .10 drivers, but that was probably because the driver was a fucking idiot, trying to drag race his car in a residential neighborhood or something ridiculous like that.

I'm not condoning driving drunk, just saying that this law with do basically nothing to help the cause. Clinton said it will save 500 lives, but then he made it clear that he did not promise that, just hoping that it will.

How many of you who disagree with 0.08 think that when they are at 0.08 they are perfectly fine to drive? If you do, lets gather somewhere and find out. This test was done by a news crew in Wichita, and after two shots and 1 hour, the participants had bac checked and it was at or just above 0.08 and guess what all of them thought they were driving fine when in fact they were committing several traffic violations with poor driving, slow reactions, impaired judgement, none could pass the field sobriety tests either.

I think you need to reevaluate your assessment on your ability to function unimpaired at 0.08, I think you will shockingly suprised.

Most states have implied consent, since a license is a privelage not a right, you sign agreeing to give a breath or blood sample if requested by the authorities. If you refuse most states fine you. You will still go to jail.

MI I don't know about, but by the time they got a search warrant your bac would all but be gone, cause they gotta write it up, get a judge to review and sign it then get it to the hospital and serve it. The fastest I have seen a warrant drawn was about 2 hours, if all the pieces fell into place. (personal experience)

Now if you are in an accident it is a given you are going to get a blood draw almost for sure.

My point is this it doesn't matter whether 36 states or 10 states are at 0.1, 0.08 seems fair, reasonable maybe, but in the end it is now standerdized to one value, so you can't get away with it in one state and not the other.

HotBlood: My best friend in high school died because he was hit by a drunk driver. That was Sept. 2, 1991 - it was Labor Day and two days before school started. I still miss him. His Mom's hair turned gray overnight and it really fucked up my senior year of high school. But stupid legislation isn't bringing him back. Also, by saying, "If you don't think a drunk will ever take the life of someone you know..." you are only proving my point. It will happen regardless. So stop the bullshit.

LaserDude: Do I really need the government to tell me what I can and can't do to my body? They already took my steroids away, well, tried to, and now you think alcohol should be illegal?

Plato: Comparing the number of drunk driving deaths in other countries is an invlaied statistic. We have more people tan most countries, and certainly more cars and more miles of road. Also, European countries have more stringent licensing tests for drivers.

Look - I'm not saying we shouldn't be hard on drunk drivers. We should. Drawing the line at .10 is fine, and if you want to do anything - increase the post conviction penalties. Widen the statute for vehicular homicide. All this is doing is creating a greater burden on an already overtaxed system.

Yes, pc can be invented, I never did invent it as most cops wouldn't that I have known.

Finding a drunk on the road is harder than it sounds. And the 0.08 law doesn't mean I just randomly pull you over and give you tests. That is what dui checkpoints are for.

You would have a hard time with the only pc being he was going 5 under the speed limit unless he was impeding the flow of traffic. More commonly what you will see is weaving, failure to maintain lane or speed, wide turns, breaking several hundreds of feet from a red light, braking at a green light. Slow to respond to a traffic light or situation. Slow to respond to emergency equipment. And on.

When you are impaired and don't think you are that is when a drinker becomes dangerous.

The new law as clinton caims will save 500 lives a year, is crap, it will not. All the standardized law does is penalize states for not bowing to the government. In states where it is 0.10, if you fail the field tests, and have numerous traffic violations in conjunction with your traffic stop, and you only blow 0.08, you can still get a dui/dwi or impaired driving and you are still arrested on the spot. I wouldn't care what the law said was the minimum, If I felt you were unable to safely operate a vehicle you weren't driving it. And if I had to arrest you to do it I would.

Here is a link with the info on the # of states with 0.010

http://abcnews.go.com:80/sections/us/DailyNews/drunkdriving001023.html

Most cops don't just invent pc. But if you're on the job at 4:00 AM, that one car with four people in it sure does look inviting.

Also, I mentioned that in NY, the only vreathalyzer that counts is the one at the police station, not the roadside one. Is that true elsewhere? because a .11 or even .12 won;t get you arrested here, most of the time. By the time they get you to the station, it will have decreased a little.

We couldn't force someone to take a blood test even if they refused.

On the three hours is that including getting a warrant or is that just taking him there and getting it done? I was referring to the amount of time it takes to do the paper work and get it signed for a warrant. We could usually do a dui in under 2 hours if all went well, from time of stop to shutting the jail door.

As I stated earlier when a person is intoxicated is individual. But where do you draw the line. I had a friend in the Marines, weighed about 180-200, 2 bears he was stammering drunk. Other people nothing.

I guess the whole point to this argument is this. At what limit do we draw the line? And would we react the same if the gov't standardized all gun laws so that no matter where in the country you went you would know the law exactly? I am not saying the govt should interfere and this entire law is for show for clinton.

I am not going to change my point of view of 0.08, as I am sure no one else is going to change theirs either.

Once in a CJ class we disscused this...And my prof was a former Ca highway patrolman and mentioned that a few times when they would go to pull a drunk over that the person would roll down his windows, place his keys on the dash, and open a beer and start drinking it in front of them...Now he said that this caused them problems arresting and testing people because they wouldn't know if it were the beer the person was drinking then or earlier...

Your a cheap date, two beers and I'm wasted!

I look at it this way the more states we cover the better informed we can keep the bro's on here.

Yeah are judges are twits, our DA wouldn't even go for the death penalty in the killing of my supervisor with 10 witnessess three of which were other Deputies. All because he had an iq of 40 and he was .... you fill in the blanks she was white and trying to make a name for herself and didn't think it would look good on her record. Even though this puke had a record longer than my arm, and was let out of prison becuase of excess time on the books (wtf) and he said let me go and I will hurt someone, his doctors said the same thing. Month later friend and supervisor dead.

So as you can see our judges and D.A.'s suck llama dick!

My car chase was on tv scariest police chases. It was the one where the guy jumps out of the truck and bounces off the curb and the truck almost squashes him. That was a hell of a chase and then a 200 yard foot chase, caught that freak.

Get this, his total fines added up to over 50,000 dollars and total jail time added up to about 5 years, the judge gave him a suspended sentence and fined him 500 bucks.
And this was the fifth time he had run from the police in a car. Go figure.

I can't tell you about all the stories I've heard about all the bad cops doing this and all the bad cops doing that. All cops seem to plant evidence and make up their own pc for stops and arrests. Hell, just ask O.J. if you don't believe it.

Before you start critizing something that does save lives, try going to your local police or sheriff's department and doing some ride alongs on payday friday and saturday nights. They welcome the citizen interaction. It gives them a chance to see what police work is really like.

Yes many drunks you see on television that get into accidents and kill people are two or three times above the limit. It's sensationalized by the media because it makes a great story and will sell papers and get more viewers.

Reality is there are many more accidents, fatal and otherwise, that happen at the lower B.A.C. levels. You can probably contact your state DMV and get some ideas of exactly what the average is.

Here in Oregon if you are arrested but don't blow a .08% you can still be charged for duii if the officer can prove you are impaired.

For the most part search warrants are not used to obtain blood to prove a you are drunk. If no accident or injuries occurred than you can refuse and I have to stand on my observations in court. If you are in an accident and someone is hurt or property is damaged I have the legal right to take your blood if you refuse to give it. I have had to sit on one person while another officer held the arm down so a nurse could draw blood from the driver involved in an injury accident. Exigent circumstances dictate this so evidence is not lost. Exigent Circumstances - look that up in your jail house lawyers manual.

In the last 10 months I have investigated 8 fatal car crashes. The victims were two months old up to their mid 40's. Come stand in my shoes some time before you again critize. The area I work in has a population of about 3,500. Thats a lot of violent alcohol related deaths for absultely nothing.

Your observations are excellent; the problem is very real.

You're also off the topic - the original claim was that the law is not going to rectify the situation. Congress could pass a "zero-tolerance" law for drinking and driving, and it won't make a damn bit of difference.

It isn't a question of jailhouse lawyering. It's a question of seeing the bullshit just as much as the next guy, and having a little bit of wisdom to see what laws will be effective and what will not.

If you or anyone elseon this board can defend this law with claims other than how gruesome the crashes are (in other words: logic) then I welcome it.

But all I have seen is "DWI is bad" and "they kill people" etc. Yes, all true. How will this law change that? Tell me please.

If I inconvenience someone for a few hours because they were arrested for a .08% duii and maybe did something to save his/her life or someone elses I will do it over and over again and go home at the end of the night with a clear conscious.

I appreciate your honesty. I used to be an Army Ranger and I know what you mean about what goes on with the drinking. Work hard, play hard. I know the deal there - many weekend trips that involved drinking both ways on the trip - trying to stretch the weekend out as far as you can, and show up just in time for PT Monday morning.

I also know that many cops are prior service of some kind and they forget - they totally fucking forget - what they were before they were cops.

It just seems like the whole thought process of lawmaking and enforcing has gone out the window at the legislative level. You know as well as I do that:

1. The federal government has no business doing this, with the "highway money" threat; it;s a state by state issue.

2. Nothing will change.

The only real solution here is to educate people about DWI, and make the post-conviction punishment more than a fine/suspension.

I appreciate your insight.

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Weights before dates

Bros before Hos

Let us look at laws from the 60's and 70's pertaining to dui, there weren't very many. If you got pulled over for a traffic violation you could have a gin and tonic in hand and more than likely not get arrested. By the late 70's and through the 80's and 90's the dui/dwi laws have gotten tougher and the police actually enforce them and it is quite evident that the death and injury rate from alcohol related accidents have gone down dramatically. So yes I do believe that a universal standardized limit will save lives how many I don't know. Yes we need to educate, but when people believe they are okay to drive at say 0.08 and they are shown they are not they will argue the point.

I also strongly disagree about cops/deputies and so forth planting evidence, one of the books in the law enforcement bible is the Constitution. I have worked with hundreds of officeres and none ever planted evidence period. You will have your ten percent and we will police them ourselves.

Let me give you car stop scenario. Your tag light is out I pull you over, (yes that is a traffic violation in KS and Arkansas, and Arizona and so forth. I approach the vehicle and I smell alcohol coming from the car. When I talk to you you have alcohol on your breath. I give you fields, hgn you fail them all, I arrest you, I take you to jail and you blow 0.06. Guess what? You still stay in jail and when released you have to arrange for a ride home, you are not allowed to drive. You have your day in court and lose based on my testimony, my mvr (mobile video recorder)you still get a dui conviction.

The point is this, it is a minimum by which to judge. If you pass all tests at the car stop, chances are you will not be arrested and tested. You are only tested after the stop and I have arrested you after determining that you are under the influence through fields. (this includes giving you a pbt if I desire)

Whatever the limit is,it is my judgement as a Deputy that takes you off the road, the limit just helps me get a conviction.

If your muffeler was too loud then it is inoperative equipment and yes you can get pulled over for that in most areas. If you blow 0.09 that is tough. The officer was following you to record your driving for evidence. If he wanted he could follow you all nignt.

So, if it is sarcasm I apologize.

Laws vary state to state. In NY, there is no conviction without a breathalyzer. Refuse the test = get a suspension, and a fine, but that's it.

There is also no blood test in NY unless you are involved in an accident.

Chesty/DS: Much of the perception about cops comes from the fact that they only make the news for alleged misdeeds - ex. Rodney King and Amadou Diallo.

Anyway, back to my original point:

Yes your original point. What would you set for a minimum limit. And if you were a cop or a citizen and observed a driver acting drunk, you give him field sobriety tests and he fails them miserabley and you give him a breathalizer and he blows 0.07 would you let him go and continue to drive, knowing he is in no condition to drive?

What about any substance that impairs you ability to drive. I can even arrest you for dui/dwi for being under the influence of prescription drugs.

True on the sensationalism, now Rodney King is another story, what the media let the public see was only the last few moments of the incident.

What you weren't shown, was the high speed car chase in a stolen vehicle, he was high on meth (or crack) had been shot twice with a taser gun and pulled the leads out of his chest both times, been pepper sprayed, he had injured a police officer and refused the commands of the officers. Plus he was no small fellow. Now, I don't condone the actions of some at the end once he was on the ground and but you have to remember the adrenaline rush that these officers are feeling at this point. The ones arriving after the fact should have stopped it before it got out of hand.

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IN IRON WE TRUST.

HEAVEN IS THE BACKSEAT OF MY CADILLAC.

HEY ITS THERON!!!!!!! LETS KILL HIM!

Also, I do not use, never have and dont believe I ever will.