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SFPD Breathalyzer Mistake Puts Hundreds of DUI Convictions In Doubt
Mr. Shotgun writes "According to CBS, 'Hundreds, or even thousands, of drunk driving convictions could be overturned because the San Francisco Police Department has not tested its breathalyzers, officials said Monday. For at least six years, the police officers in charge of testing the 20 breathalyzers used by the Police Department did not carry out any tests on the equipment. Officers instead filled the test forms with numbers that matched the control sample, said Public Defender Jeff Adachi, throwing countless DUI convictions into doubt.' Apparently this has happened before."
I want a whole bunch of doubt to be thrown on the judicial system. It's had such a great track record so far, after all.
...this doesn't surprise me in the least. You have a few that respect and understand technology, and all it can do for the dept, but most resent it and try to deal with it and little as possible.
This won't even change anything, really.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Will officers face sanctions for falsifying records?
The DA said:
Gascon said there did not appear to be any malicious intent behind the police officers’ actions. He said the coordinators were apparently just too lazy to perform the test required every 10 days.
Can I use that excuse when I get pulled over for rolling through a stop sign? "But I was just too lazy to stop, officer! Surely you can understand that!"
"Err, Opps! there is an error here. Let me check that again"
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
This is fraud: A police officer accepted a paycheck for work and services he did not perform. That's fraud, and the officer should be relieved of duty and terminated from employment. Cops aren't above the law, or accountability, and it sounds like whoever fraudulently filled out the forms using the baseline measurements engaged in fraud.
Who did what now?
Gosh. That couldn't happen before *cough* where I work *cough*.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
A mistake would have been using the wrong calibration procedure or something. Deliberately NOT PERFORMING the required calibration and falsifying the report forms is not a "mistake", it is outright FRAUD, and the pig or pigs responsible need to be held responsible.
Of course, that ain't gonna happen here in the United Police States of Amerika...
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Even though you'll most likely have your driver's license suspended if you refuse a breathalyzer, it's best to refuse it anyway if you're drunk.
Once you refuse the breathalyzer it gets complicated for the police and the clock starts ticking to get that blood test done in a timely fashion.
Unless, of course, you're guilty and looking for plausible deniability......
But then, if you aren't guilty, take the breath test and if you fail, ask for the blood test.......otherwise, you have to take a ride to the station for the blood test, and all of that other inconvenience.
That's not a mistake. That's negligence and dereliction of duty.
Cops are always telling us the shit they do is about our safety. So this must be about not giving a damn if we're safe. Fire 'em all.
That a police department would use questionable tools and tactics to secure large numbers of convictions that also result in large fines.
take THAT offfficeer i-know-everrything
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What idiots. Any time you use a piece of scientific equipment regularly, you have to be sure you're calibrating it. Even better if you're checking your calibrations multiple different ways.
I hope they get their ASSES sued! If it happen to me, and I had to pay fines, spend time in jail, lose my license, my job, reputation, etc. etc., I'd get the best lawyer and SUE them!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
IMHO, testing ought to be done by the vendor and calibration ought to be done by cognizant, technical individuals who have a minor amount of ethics. For a test person to fill in "sample data" is evidence that (a) these things don't work, or (b) the test person was either incompetent or unethical (and neither of these is acceptable in an industry related to the security of the public like law enforcement).
Official acting in capacity related to public safety + laziness = malicious
Uh, what? There's something wrong with that equation. If a public official was too lazy to change his password, does that mean he had malicious intent to bring down his city's servers? No. Just means he was lazy. Charge the officers with something appropriate. Write them up for not doing their job properly, counsel them on how to calibrate and why it's important, and check the paperwork.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Unless, of course, you're guilty and looking for plausible deniability......
But then, if you aren't guilty, take the breath test and if you fail, ask for the blood test.......otherwise, you have to take a ride to the station for the blood test, and all of that other inconvenience.
If you fail you'll get a ride to the station anyway. The advisability of refusing a test aside; it's still not that hard to get convicted of DUI based on other evidence. I served on a DUI jury, and all a breath test would have done is shorten the time it took to reach a verdict from 2 days to probably 2 hours. We took our job seriously and debated each piece of evidence, so not having a breath gets probably helps a case but it is not a slam dunk acquittal by a long shot.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Of all the idiotic things I have heard of police departments doing, this has got to be very close to the top. This is right up there with the Eugene cop who tazed a Chinese U of O student because the student didn't speak English!
I don't think you fully understand how a DUI works. A breathalyzer is not conviction-worthy evidence. It is merely a field test which leads to a U.A. or blood test which can provide accurate readings. Yes, sometimes users of other substances are caught up in this, and unlike with alcohol, we have limited ability in terms of establishing current intoxication with any other mind altering substance. I have heard people speak about dwi charges for marijuana that was smoked over 4-8 hours prior to driving. Point being, however, that this doesn't challenge the legitimacy of the charges. It challenges the competence of the officers, but that really isn't a surprise. Most cities require a short period of professional training (tech school) and a pulse. Testing a breathalyzer is simple and takes barely a moment. To save themselves several seconds, they B.S. it? I find this strange, and disappointing. We barely catch 10% of drunk drivers. I wonder if it is less being underfunded/staffed and more being lazy and incompetent.
DUI is a serious crime and deserving of very serious penalties. It is a shame that numbskulls like these people can not properly follow procedures to make sure their equipment is functioning properly.
Thanks.
That would explain why a cop claimed he measured me at 91, even though my cruise control had been set to 79 (plus four over the speed limit). His equipment was probably not calibrated and giving false readings.
I'm tempted to just throw the ticket in the trash. I don't think a New Mexico cop is going to come after a guy living in Jersey (2000+ miles away),
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Unbelievable. I worked for Phoenix Police for nine years doing computer work. We had implemented an optical document management system when DUI attorneys started subpoenaing Intoxilyzer maintenance records as SOP when it came to cases, so we started scanning all calibration and maintenance records as part of our SOP. It also made it ridiculously easy to fulfill the subpoena. Our Intoxilyzers were calibrated by the crime lab, so it was actual chemists with a vested interest in accuracy, so it was done right. And this was back in the 90's!
Just unbelievable that SFPD could be so stupid. There's no excuse for this, whoever is in charge of that calibration really needs to get their heads handed to them. And so does the prosecutor's office for not checking this.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
No. Fire them. File charges of official misconduct. Take their pensions. Ruin their lives any way you can.
They did not "forget" to do some thing. They deliberately did something WRONG and tried to hide it.
The "to lazy to change his password" equation doesn't fit. More like he changed his password to "password" told every one and had someone else punch him in and out for work.
Counsel them on how to pick up trash and buy them matching D.O.C. jumpsuits.
--
Being smug just makes you less informed than some one who watches TV.
-- Sig under construction...
How about something even simpler?
Breathalyzer devices create a paper trail. Every time a sample is run, the results are printed out. The cops need this paper trail if they want to use the result in court.
If they want to use the calibration sheet in court, they should need the same paper trail. The calibration sheet should have the paper printout stapled to it for each calibration sample they ran. If it doesn't, no calibration was done. Simple.
I dunno. That specific cop may not come looking for you- but they could put a warrant out for you that a Jersey cop would respect.
It's probably not worth the escalation that not showing up to court could bring to you.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
A judge in New Mexico can have your Jersey license suspended. They undoubtedly will, and you'll find out about it in a few years when you get pulled over for something really minor and end up going to jail for driving with a suspended license.
In most jurisdictions, refusing to take the field sobriety test is sufficient grounds for suspension of your license and a hefty fine, iirc.
Prosecutor's office? How about the defense attorneys! Holy crap I'd be pissed off if my lawyer let something like this slide.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Ya know what else doesn't get calibrated?
The scanners run by the SA at airports. At any point of time there could be a mechanical failure and the machines start bombarding passengers with lethal (or cancer-causing) doses of X-rays and nobody would ever know, because the machines are not regularly tested (as is required in hospitals and doctors' offices). I don't think I will ever voluntarily step through one of those things.
There's a reason the European Union banned their use. I wish OUR union would wake-up and ban them as well (but of course the CEO of the scanner company has bought the politicians that make those decisions).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Refusing the test may raise suspicion by the cop that you have things that aren't in order.
And if it's positive then go for the blood test.
The breath analyzers are better today than they were before, but there's still room for inaccuracy. However if you know you are sober you shouldn't have any problem taking the test. The accuracy problems are usually when it's the question of the legal limit or not. And here the legal limit is 0.02%.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
If I get pulled over (and this does vary by state)...and I know I'm toast, on his advice, I won't say a thing, won't answer a question, I will NOT take any roadside tests (that's just letting them gather evidence against you on camera) and refuse breath or blood tests.
I'll politely hold my hands out for them to put the cuffs on me, and quietly go with them...and call my atty when I get to the police station.
The main thing to do...is NOT give them any evidence....or as little as possible.
In many states, at worst on first offense, refusing any tests might get you license yanked for 6mos up to a year, but with good atty, you can get temp license to drive to/from work and for food, etc.
A PITA, of course, but much better than getting a DWI on your record...which can then keep you out of jobs, kills your insurance rates...and cost $$$$.
Ever since they lowered the BAC to the ridiculously low 0.08....a grown man, having 2 drinks with a meal, can be dangerously close to the so called legal limit.
So, it pays to know what to do....the govt these days seem to be into any kind of traffic stop mostly for revenue these days...safety is usually second place.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What's wrong with your lawyers?
What's NOT wrong with our lawyers?
I don't see how a New Mexican judge can have any power outside of his own state. What you propose is equvalent to a Spanish judge suspending a Polish guy's license (which cannot happen even though both are part of the EU). The judge's authority ends at the border.
Now maybe if the Jersey government has an agreement to honor traffic violations, and extradites me to New Mexico, but that seems very unlikely. Especially since they are separated by over 2000 miles.
Normally I would fight it in court but again, I'm not going 2000+ miles just to fight a ticket. Asshole cops. They can lie (claim I was doing 91 when I was only doing 79) and get away with it.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Professionals (in many fields) are often held to a higher standard of conduct than the general public. So for what you or I might receive a simple reprimand, a professional should not get off so lightly.
Or, if the higher standard of a professional doesn't apply, then the next time I get a traffic ticket (based on some cop's judgment) and I fight it in court, the judge should not be able to consider that cop's testimony as being from a 'professional' and given more weight than my own. You can't have it both ways.
Password example: What penalties you or I should suffer for screwing up password security (as average members of the public) should suffer will be far less than a bank employee, who is entrusted with the security of a large number of accounts.
Have gnu, will travel.
But systematic fraud.
Where the aspect of malice comes into play on top of the fraud is whether or not the cops in question knew that the devices were giving consistent results of drunkenness or not.
Check your premises.
Next time someone starts talking about holding programmers legally liable, remember how police officers ruined peoples lives because they were "just too lazy to perform the test."
Also, we all knew that Test Driven Development was going to cause crashes.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Holy crap I'd be pissed off if my lawyer let something like this slide.
I think you're missing the point. The defense attorney's would have asked for proof that the devices had been calibrated. And the falsely filled-out paperwork would have been turned over, showing just that. You're saying that the defense attorney's should have asked for proof that the documentation wasn't fraudulent. Which would have been ... what? Paperwork from a non-existing third party auditor? That's why the cases are in question.
Mind you, most cops know exactly when they're dealing with a drunk. And the drunks know when they're drunk. I would hope that this blunder only impacts very questionable/marginal cases, and not those where the driver was obviously and aggregiously under the influence.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Not to mention jury trials are expensive, so if somebody gets off the hook forcing one, it's just another rich guy buying his way through the system.
I see it two ways. Either you're guilty or you're innocent.
If you're innocent- what does it matter- even if the field test incorrectly says you're over the limit- you still get sent free when the real test at the station show's you're not over the limit. Best case for taking the field-test- you don't have to go to the station. Worst case- you go to the station. If you refuse the field test- you get the worst case scenario every time.
It's the same if you're guilty. I've the machine malfunctions and you don't go to the station (best case you get let go) - or it says you're guilty and you end up going to the station- where you get charged because the machine there confirms your guilt. At least if you take the field test you stand a chance of getting let go.
If you're borderline- take as many tests and slow things down as much as possible. Hopefully you'll be in the clear by the time you reach the station.
I see no benefit under any scenario to refuse the in-the-field breathalyser test.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Here is better legal advice: Don't drink and drive, asshole.
If a grown man is dangerously-close to the legal limit, he needs to hand the keys over to someone more responsible. Chances are, if he does choose to DUI, nothing will happen. However, there's always a chance he will cause an accident and seriously injure or kill someone. DUI is a serious crime and 100% preventable, all you have to do is act like a responsible adult and hand your keys to someone who is not under the influence. In that case you will not have to worry about getting that DWI on your record. The only person who is to blame for a DUI/DWI conviction is the person who gets drunk or high and gets behind the wheel of a car.
That's a bit of a threadjack, but now I can't help asking - do those scanners actually have the capacity to administer a lethal dose?
Maybe I'm giving the engineers too much credit, but I would hope that would be no more possible than flashlight emitting a lethal dose of visible light.
In the UK, refusing/failing to provide a specimen of blood or breath carries the same punishment as providing a positive sample. This gets around people like you trying to avoid responsibility for their actions.
But at least a new job processing refunds and overturning conviction records will be created, and isn't that what really matters?
no comment
Nearly all of the states have signed onto 2 of the 3 compacts dealing with out-of-state drivers licenses. Each state agrees to honor decisions like license suspensions from another:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_License_Compact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Resident_Violator_Compact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_License_Agreement
Yep...I've asked lawyer friends...
If I get pulled over (and this does vary by state)...and I know I'm toast, on his advice, I won't say a thing, won't answer a question, I will NOT take any roadside tests (that's just letting them gather evidence against you on camera) and refuse breath or blood tests.
I'll politely hold my hands out for them to put the cuffs on me, and quietly go with them...and call my atty when I get to the police station.
The main thing to do...is NOT give them any evidence....or as little as possible.
That's the same advice I get from lawyer and cop friends. The cops I know say your first comment should be "I want my lawyer, since anything you say up to that point is fair game.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The states have gotten together and set up an interstate commission to deal with this kind of stuff. It was passed by the legislatures and signed off by the governors, and the final result is you are screwed. You either plead guilty by mail and pay the fine, or they find you guilty in absentia and screw up your license and registration by remote control. And it's all perfectly legal. In general, a judge is not necessarily part of the process.
You can complain all you want - they don't give a damn. What they want is the money and in the case of AZ and NM, in particular, they don't care whether the result is fair or not.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
This. I talk about theoretical terrorist attacks, malware ideas and black-hat legal/technical defense ideas all the time and I never say this, but in this case I will: DO NOT ACTUALLY DO THIS. AVOID DRUNK DRIVING CONVICTIONS BY NOT DRIVING DRUNK.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Refusing the test may raise suspicion by the cop that you have things that aren't in order.
And if it's positive then go for the blood test.
The breath analyzers are better today than they were before, but there's still room for inaccuracy. However if you know you are sober you shouldn't have any problem taking the test. The accuracy problems are usually when it's the question of the legal limit or not. And here the legal limit is 0.02%.
In some states, the legal limit is irrelevant to being charged and convicted for DUI or DWI.
Of course, the best choice is not to drive while you are impaired, even if you are below the legal limit.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I wouldn't necessarily trust the vendor further than I could throw them "Yeah, sorry guys, our testing indicates that our product is broken and we need to replace it under warranty". In the context of criminal justice, where we use the 'adversarial' legal system under the theory that the contesting sides provide the best chance of achieving the correct answer, it would seem more appropriate for the testing and calibration of forensic apparatus and technique should really be the job of an independent entity whose performance is judged on the basis of how effectively they represent the 'accuracy interest' of the apparatus and technique...
I'm guessing(and the fact that nobody noticed that the calibration data were eerily perfect and uniform, because individual units were just getting cut-and-paste numbers re-enforces my suspicion) that there is no professional accolade to be had for being 'that guy who is always pointing out problems with the gear' within the police department. Ideally, you'd want the department of exacting assholes to be in charge of testing the stuff, and distinct from the officers in charge of using it...
Or, as many other people have already said, don't drink and drive.
Anyone who does get convicted of drink-driving should lose their licence permanently.
Police officers are generally polite, respectful, and concerned for your safety.
Police departments are generally corrupt, bureaucratic, and don't give a shit about your safety.
For every asshole, rights-stomping cop there are several good ones. Unfortunately, they're powerless to do their sworn duty and protect you from the asshole cops and the department as a whole.
I think you're missing the point. The defense attorney's would have asked for proof that the devices had been calibrated. And the falsely filled-out paperwork would have been turned over, showing just that. You're saying that the defense attorney's should have asked for proof that the documentation wasn't fraudulent. Which would have been ... what? Paperwork from a non-existing third party auditor? That's why the cases are in question.
What I suspect you will see is that defense attorneys will not stipulate the calibration forms for a while. They will call the officer into court to testify, under oath, that the calibration was done. With any luck that happened in at least some of these cases and the prosecutors can hang perjury charges on the individuals responsible.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
if it was a serious crime the tsa would stop molesting people at the airports and focus on stopping dui
Damnit to hell. It pisses me off that I have to pay $100 for a crime I did not commit.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Your username and your advice seem to be at odds
"Of course, the best choice is not to drive while you are impaired, even if you are below the legal limit."
My rule of thumb. I don't drive for 1 hour per shot/beer. Since it usually takes me 30-45min to drink a beer, by the time I'm done, I'm almost ready to go.
That, and the tidyness of a ticked conviction box. It looks really bad of a police department has a lot of crimes on record without associated convictions. Someone has to go down to tick that box.
This is the kind of thing that entire FIRMS tend to notice (and its in Cali so they are sue crazy to begin with).
If i was the SF government i would try to buy out/pay off as many of the folks i could just to limit the damage.
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A friend of mine driving a Jaguar XKS was pulled over by a Scottsdale cop who claimed he was doing 50+ in a residential zone. I was working at Phoenix Police at the time and had told him that motorcycle cops were supposed to check their radar guns at the start of every shift, then they were calibrated during routine maintenance once or twice a year and I think a copy of those maintenance/calibration records traveled with the bike. I'd told my friend all of this, and he knew he hadn't been speeding, so he asked for the calibration records. The cop eventually called his supervisor, the supervisor pointed the radar gun at a tree and clocked it at 30 MPH and told my friend to leave.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
In my state, you have the right to demand a blood test.
By refusing an alcohol test, you will have your license revoked, and the refusal will be considered an admission of guilt. I've been told by numerous defense attorneys to demand the blood test if I *ever* get stopped for suspicion of DUI. It doesn't matter if I haven't touched alcohol in weeks.
And yes, you will get handcuffed, dragged down to the station, processed, and then taken to the hospital for the test.
There are two reasons for demanding the blood test. The first is to avoid inaccuracy with the breath test. The second is that time passes between the road-side stop and the blood being drawn. If you were drinking, and you would have been a borderline fail when you were stopped, you'll have metabolized enough to allow for a pass at the hospital.
There are folks like me, who have a high tolerance for alcohol. I pick the safe alternative, getting a ride rather than driving even still, if I have a few drinks and get pulled over, I will pass the general roadside tests (walking a line, reciting the alphabet, etc).
There are plenty of days which I would fail the physical parts, because I have back problems. Because of this, it is in my best interest to demand a blood test. For example, right now the herniated disks in my back are killing me. I haven't touched any alcohol for months. I couldn't pass a road side test. I'd find it difficult to stand up straight. I have a well documented history of this, but it would mean I'd end up unjustly arrested, and it would cost me money to fight it in court.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
They should be written up and counseled for not calibrating the equipment. They should be arrested and prosecuted for manufacturing fake evidence in criminal cases.
You'd have to see a schematic to be know that - and not only will those be considered a trade secret of the manufacturer, but even trying to obtain a copy could lead to you being considered a terror suspect searching for a way to circumvent the scanners. I don't know about backscatter scanners, but conventional xray machines produce their rays via bombardment of a target with an electron stream - the intensity of the radiation depends on the current in that beam, so it's quite plausible that a faulty component could lead to a serious overcurrent and subsequent irradiation of the passangers.
Not really. The legal limit is a fraction of what it takes to actually be significantly impaired. Your BAC is over the limit long before you are drunk.
I fully agree that it would be quite unacceptable to drive while ACTUALLY drunk.
Right, 'cause ruining somebody's life is always the best way to correct a mistake and will never have unintended consequences... These guys messed up big, but the point of the justice system is to correct and reduce crime - you don't do that by taking away people's livelihood.
+1 Disagree
I'll politely hold my hands out for them to put the cuffs on me, and quietly go with them...and call my atty when I get to the police station.
"No, your honor. I didn't want to arrest him. I was just going to ask him for directions. That's when the suspect insisted I put cuffs on him, said he wasn't going to say another word, and then made his way into the back seat of my police car. "
individuals who have a minor amount of ethics.
oh, so you DO want cops to do this calibration??
(sorry but you walked right into that one)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
A PITA, of course, but much better than getting a DWI on your record...which can then keep you out of jobs, kills your insurance rates...and cost $$$$.
Jobs: If you're driving under the influence, you've showed you're either negligent, or actively willing to endanger yourself and others for a night's entertainment. I understand your argument about "a grown man, having two drinks with a meal"--but it's just a drink. Most restaurants have something else you can quench your thirst with that won't make you unable to drive. If you're so (pardon the term) drunk on the taste and sensation of a beer with your dinner that you're in danger of going over, maybe you can't be trusted to know the limit in the first place.
Go figure that people might not consider you a pristine employee. I mean sure, you might do a very good job at whatever it is they hire you for. You might also be a surly, insensitive jackass that ends up breaking property or assaulting people, which may in turn cost them more than you'll ever be worth.
Insurance: Drunk drivers kill a lot of people every year. In addition to it being a tragedy, for the insurance co.s, it's a business matter. How do YOU propose that they tell the difference between a person who drives drunk (or tipsy) but have been lucky so far, and people who might die, kill, create enormous medical bills, or wreck expensive property tomorrow?
Fines: These are laws about public safety. You're complaining about paying money because you were caught endangering others. I'm not sure I trust you behind the wheel in any event, knowing that. Let alone that you consulted a lawyer about how to act if (when eventually?) you get caught doing something that could kill people, and took the advice to heart.
It's not like there's no corruption and malevolence in the police, or that there's nowhere that police do a shitty job of keeping people safe. But if you want to make an argument like that, pick something other than harsh drunk driving laws.
The only person who is to blame for a DUI/DWI conviction is the person who gets drunk or high and gets behind the wheel of a car.
So you are saying .02% == drunk? Or are you saying no one is to blame in those cases, since a drunk person did not get behind the wheel; in my opinion, you and legions of MADD women are to blame for using emotionally charged tragedies to set ridiculous and arbitrary limits that would not have prevented the tragic outcome in the first place. This is what the temperance movement has become now that everybody knows you are all naive, up-tight retards.
The center of New Mexico is actually over 5000 miles from the center of Jersey.
And no, no judge in New Mexico has the right to suspend a license issued in Jersey. It's doubtful that even a judge in London would have the rights to do that. I'm pretty sure any request would have to be passed through the Bailiff of Jersey's office.
tl;dr: New Jersey is not Jersey any more than New York is York.
Do you have any scientific evidence to suggest that 08%BAC correlates to anything other than a number forced on state legislatures by the federal congress? Any at all? Now, given the article, do you suggest that everyone who gets a DWI is actually intoxicated? Let me give you a hint. There's this state called Georgia, where a good friend of mine got a DUI for being a black guy with a nice car. I had spent the preceding 8 hours with him, flying. He hadn't drunk anything. He was sober when he showed up to work, and didn't drink between then and when he got the DUI. You, cunt, are full of bullshit.
Don't drive drunk, but DUI charges, and most specifically, .08%BAC, are not related to killing people while driving shitfaced.
not knowing the actual devices it is possible that due to using a "standard part" that the xray emmiter itself has a lot more power than would be required FOR THIS USE and it is limited by some sort of "buffer" circuit. all it would take is for the buffer circuit to short out and you have a machine that is cooking folks.
Also don't forget that there is a lot of range between 12X chance of getting cancer and dropping dead at the checkpoint.
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That's another reason why it's better to just hand over the keys if you've been consuming alcohol. It affects people in different ways but you have to draw a line somewhere. This is one case where I'd rather be safe than sorry and think that a lower bound on the BAC is a good idea.
The thing is though, the legal limit has little relation to being impaired. The AMA said 30 years ago that a BAC of .15 would make someone impaired. At .08, the vast majority of people aren't impaired. The law used to be that you got arrested if you were driving while impaired. Now, you get arrested if you are over .08 even if you aren't impaired.
hand your keys to someone who is not under the influence
Easier said than done. In practice you'll need to pay a lot of round-trip taxi fares until/if automated cars are available.
With any luck that happened in at least some of these cases and the prosecutors can hang perjury charges on the individuals responsible.
*Could* hang perjury charges on the cops. But won't. The prosecutor/cop relationship doesn't work that way.
Just sayin'
I would hope that would be no more possible than flashlight emitting a lethal dose of visible light.
The GP is right. Take a flashlight, focus the light into a point (into an image of the LED crystal, to be precise) and point into your eye. You'd lose vision in that eye pretty quick.
X-ray scanners are scanning you with a medium power (? no data) beam. Each spot of your skin is exposed to that beam for a fraction of a second; an average exposure is supposed to be low. Imagine that I take a hot soldering iron and slide its tip across your chest. Each patch of the skin under the iron's tip heats up to 450F, but since there are many of those patches the average temperature is only, say, 45F - which is totally harmless. Would you like to lay down here, please, while I heat the iron up?
A catastrophic fault will stop the beam of the scanner. The entire output of the X-ray tube will be directed at a single spot of your body, wherever it happened to be at the time of failure. There could be many causes of that, from mechanical (insufficient grease; plastic gear stripped; motor burned out; the MOSFET controlling the motor is blown; motor's power supply failed) to programming (the software crashed in mid-scan.) That would be analogous to me starting to slide that hot soldering iron across your chest, but then just stopping the movement half-way, leaving the iron's tip on your skin, and going for a dinner. It'll burn a hole all the way through you by the time I'm back...
Nobody knows how reliable the X-ray scanner is. For all I know, it may be controlled by a Windows 95 box. You'd need to be awfully reckless to step inside one of those scanners. Technically illiterate people may see scanners as an opaque magic box and go through them without a second thought. But an engineer knows how dangerous those things are.
sumarized: you may be able to beat the rap but you can't beat the ride.
don't fight or struggle and just go peacefully. don't give them ANY reason to mess with you.
also, here's a tip I learned from reading a cop forum: there are new rules for when they can search your vehicle. one way they try to trap you is to pull you over and then then sit in THEIR car an extended period of time. they watch you. they look for your movements and try to use that against you ('he was hiding something or trying to cover something up'). so, DON'T GIVE THEM ANY AMMUNITION FOR THIS! sit there motionless, perfectly still. don't move until they walk up to your car and they ask for your papers.. tell them your license and papers are in such and such pocket and that you are going to retrieve them. tell them every move you are going to make and give them NO reason to say that they were at risk of danger due to your behavior.
if you do not give them a reason to 'turn your car over' (search it) then you have a bit more power in court, should it get to that.
this is a trick the cops are now trying; to get you to be impatient so that you can 'look suspicious' to them and that gives them the right (in their eyes) to search you 'for dangerous weapons'.
sit there and do not move. helpful advice I learned from a cop forum online! (thanks for tipping your hands, guys. 'preciate it!)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
So get the law changed? Regardless of where you draw the line, someone will complain about it. As I mentioned elsewhere, this is one place where it is better to go with a lower bound.
You don't need to be drunk for your decision making and reaction times to be impaired.
AVOID DRUNK DRIVING CONVICTIONS BY NOT DRIVING DRUNK.
Considering the kinds of things that can fall under "drunk driving", easier said than done.
Not to mention that being over the limit does not translate the same to all people. I'm not talking about "oh it's just a little buzz, I'm alright to drive." I'm talking about a genuinely safe to drive, 100% feeling of sobriety, that won't change no matter how much longer you wait, but according to Johnny Law, you are unsafe to drive.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
For a test person to fill in "sample data" is evidence that (a) these things don't work, or (b) the test person was either incompetent or unethical (and neither of these is acceptable in an industry related to the security of the public like law enforcement).
Well, maybe. But it's well known in the software industry that a large percentage of users of most software will handle "fill in the form" situations by copying the examples in the manual. When you talk to those users, they usually think that the manual was telling them that those were the correct values, so of course they used them. If they make up their own values, chances are they'll get them wrong, but if they use what the manual says, it has to be right, doesn't it?
I was tempted to end that with a ;-), but unfortunately, it's not that much of a joke. What it is, really, is usually an example of how atrocious most of our documentation is. In a few cases of the above, I've checked the "manual", and found that their actions were actually a very reasonable interpretation of what the manual said to do. It's often quite easy to read many examples as "Here's exactly how you should do it." For users who aren't geeks and don't understand half (or more) of the jargon, it can be very difficult to determine what parts of the text you need to copy exactly, and what parts are variable character strings to be filled in with appropriate data. Often the documentation just uses different fonts for literal and variable text, but the fonts aren't consistent, and it's difficult for a user facing a failing system to stop and locate the section saying what those fonts mean in that document. And most of them don't understand that fonts are being used this way, because they don't even know what a "font" is.
So in my experience, the cops in question could easily be total non-geeks who are intimidated by that strange and mysterious computer stuff, and honestly think that the documentation they used was telling them exactly what data to fill in when presented with those forms.
Or they could have just been lazy, knew what they were doing, and thought that they could get away with it. It's hard to know from what we've been told. Maybe the courts will sort it out a deliver an appropriate punishment to the guilty. But I wouldn't bet any amount of money on it. That's not how our "justice" system usually works. Criminals working "inside the system" are rarely punished. The best we can usually hope for is what has been reported here: The victims of the police misbehavior have been set free (but not compensated for their time).
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
That's certainly true, however, it's also something that a responsible adult should do.
Fucking hell, pal! That's way too complicated for me when I'm drunk.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ideally, you'd want the department of exacting assholes to be in charge of testing the stuff, and distinct from the officers in charge of using it...
I like the idea of having detail-oriented assholes doing the testing and big-pictures, cheerful people doing the law enforcement.
It's possible that the PD has just been getting this backwards all these years.
Not that you'll take these stats seriously, but here is some information: http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Impaired_Driving/bac.html
I had my SCAPULA sued once.
It's happened with hospital devices (mechanical failure leading to lethal doses for patients). It's one of the reasons laws were changed to make sure the devices are checked regularly.
But for some reason the TSA x-ray machines are not subject to those same laws, and as far as I know, never checked. A device could go haywire a year ago and noone would ever know (until they get cancer 10 years later).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
If a grown man is dangerously-close to the legal limit, he needs to hand the keys over to someone more responsible. Chances are, if he does choose to DUI, nothing will happen. However, there's always a chance he will cause an accident and seriously injure or kill someone.
Sorry, but that is the same chance every drive takes every time he/she gets behind the wheel. Alcohol increases the likelihood of the accident, but the chance is still there.
DUI is a serious crime and 100% preventable...
No. It isn't 100% preventable. Usually preventing a DUI in casual drinking is preventable, but in a situation with alcoholism, which is where you get repeat DUIs from, or youth DUIs, there usually isn't the social or economic safety net you seem to assume exists for everyone all the time.
all you have to do is act like a responsible adult and hand your keys to someone who is not under the influence. In that case you will not have to worry about getting that DWI on your record. The only person who is to blame for a DUI/DWI conviction is the person who gets drunk or high and gets behind the wheel of a car
This is a very simplistic view of the human world. In any DUI there are always multiple people who could have stopped it before it happened. The drinker, the person with the drinker, neighbors, spouses, friends, children the person serving the drinks. etc. No one ever drinks alone -- not truely -- and putting all of the blame for DUIs on the drinker is wrong. Convenient, but wrong.
Even the highway cops in Super Troopers knew that you have to test your equipment!
I second that.
The best way not to get caught engaging in dangerous illegal behavior is to NOT engage in dangerous illegal behavior.
Not doing the calibration and turning in no paperwork at all would be lazy. Not properly filling out a timesheet would be lazy. Sneaking in a few unofficial breaks during the day is lazy. Faking a document that will be used in a court of law to secure a conviction crosses the line.
The problem is that blood-alcohol level isn't a good measure of actual inebriation. It's the wrong metric. I posit that a good old fashioned sobriety test probably is far far better and determining the degree of inebriation at which the operation of an automobile becomes dangerous. Of course, it is possible that that too would nail people who weren't drunk, but then again, I don't think there should be a separate criminal offense for driving drunk. If someone high, drunk or sober, cannot pass a sobriety test, they shouldn't be driving. At that point, you do the blood test to determine if there was criminal intent (ie. he had a high amount of alcohol in his system so obviously got into the car pissed) or has some nasty metabolic disorder, in which case it isn't a criminal charge, though at the very least the license should be suspended until the medical condition has been resolved.
MADD, an organization that has been for a few decades now basically been guilting politicians into a sort of temperance through the back door scheme, has a vested interested in promoting unreasonably low limits. Of course, if you object, you're clearly some vile drunk driver who can't wait to operate a vehicle completely smashed and kill CHILDREN!!!!
I think .08 limit is utter bullshit, and I drink maybe four or five alcoholic beverages a year (I really do not look booze at all). But what I am is a reasonable person, and a reasonable person cannot look at the BAC limits in place in most Western countries and see anything about them that has anything to do with solid scientific research. It's just a magical incantation ".08 is drunk, .08 is drunk" that is not based on evidence in the least. And remember, the guys charging you with driving drunk are the same guys who have invented other whoppers like "smoking crystal meth once makes you addicted forever!" and "once you start smoking marijuana you will inevitably and eventually do heroin and cocaine".
It's called job security.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
0.o
Appropriately graphic analogy... now get the hell away from me with that thing you sadist!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Which is yet another reason not to capitulate to the cock suckers' demands
Really?
My favorite watering hole (a dive, but walking distance when I get pished) has a standing offer to pay cab fair for anyone who's too drunk to drive. I talked to the bartender about it once and he said the cab company gives them a hell of a discount and everyone gets to use it as a tax writeoff.
Many bars/cabs will take you home for free or cheaply if you are intoxicated (and polite).
We have a local tow company who will even take your car home for you for free on specific holidays (4th, new years, superbowl sunday, and a couple others IIRC).
I handed my keys to my friend once even though he was suspended for DUI (irony there) because he was sober and I was not. I don't know what the cop would have done if we were pulled over, but thankfully we weren't.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Refusing the test in CA is illegal (http://apps.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/dl600.pdf p81), and I'm sure that applies to other states that don't contain the SFPD. That said, I'd still recommend getting tested at the station so you don't fail a bogus field sobriety test (by tripping over a bump in the road) or an inaccurate breathalyzer. Even as a DD, it's not worth the risk - which says more about the flaws in our system than anything else, but that's hardly going to get fixed in a comment on slashdot.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
.08 isn't drunk. not even close.
It isn't like a magic fairy will drive it home for you overnight.
If they didn't mean for you to drink and drive, I'd have to think there would not be public places, with LARGE parking lots, to allow people to drive to said establishment, and partake of the beverages they are offering for sale.
I mean, you can't possibly think even a significant minority of people leaving bars, getting into their cars and leaving are anywhere near the legal limit do you?
I sure don't ever see many cars left in the parking lot after a bar closes....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
LOL...and exactly who would that be exactly?? Pretty much everyone is gassed up the same amount, and besides, they all have their own cars they have to somehow get home too...I mean, you don't wanna leave it in the parking lot to get broken into at night, do you?
If you pick up a girl...you gotta get her home with ya...another consideration.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
According to TFA, there are people whose conviction was based on the breathalyser alone. A growing number of jurisdictions do NOT do a followup blood test.
Exactly. I mean, honestly - is it really that hard to avoid drinking and driving? If you consume alcohol, don't drive for 24 hours. A'int that hard.
Let's rephrase these a bit:
Driving while impaired is a serious crime and 100% preventable, all you have to do is act like a responsible adult and hand your keys to some who is not impaired.
I take it that you NEVER drive when fatigued or ill or on medications? Because you are the equivalent of a drunk.
Driving while distracted is a serious crime and 100% preventable, all you have to do is act like a responsible adult and hand your keys to some who is not distracted.
You NEVER encounter any distractions in your vehicle? Because that is also a crime.
By definition, virtually everyone on the road is guilty of impaired driving at some point. We mostly seem to manage. Singling out alcohol is absurd. But it sure is easy. And it obviously feels good.
It IS better to just hand over the keys and be safe. However, I draw the line at convicting people who are essentially sober for 'drunk' driving. That is especially true when other actions that have been PROVEN to cause as much or more impairment carry either no penalty at all of a much smaller fine and no other consequence.
"the police officers in charge of testing the 20 breathalyzers used by the Police Department did not carry out any tests on the equipment. Officers instead filled the test forms with numbers that matched the control sample" Wait, that's a mistake? I think headline needs to read "SFPD Breathalyzer test results forged, Puts Hundreds of DUI Convictions In Doubt" I don't see how you can accidentally not do part of your job and buy complete the paperwork that makes it look like you did your job - someone decided to do this, on purpose, and potentially let hundreds of drunk drivers off the hook and/or harm innocent people.
You also don't have to have zero alcohol in your system to have your decision making and reaction times unaffected.
You'll note, I did consider impairment.
"Of course, the best choice is not to drive while you are impaired, even if you are below the legal limit."
My rule of thumb. I don't drive for 1 hour per shot/beer. Since it usually takes me 30-45min to drink a beer, by the time I'm done, I'm almost ready to go.
A ggod rule. I also add to wait at least an hour after the last one before driving, along with limiting my intake i.e a six hour party doesn't mean a six pack.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
There are different warrants for arrest.
Bench warrants are issued by courts and judges. Last time I checked those do not cross jurisdictional lines, and certainly do not apply to different states.
I have had the same issues with some tickets in the past in different states and I just ignored it and threw it in the trash. Have one that is in debt collection now that is over 10 years old. Good luck.
It's just a game with those bastards. They know they can fuck with you because you are out of state and don't have the time and money to fight it. Glorified tax collectors for their county with guns.
P.S - Before anybody posts to tell me that I am wrong to do so, those tickets were highly, highly questionable. Not a simple 10 mph over the limit type ticket where I know I screwed up. I have always paid tickets where I knew I was wrong and got caught speeding.
Insurance: Drunk drivers kill a lot of people every year. In addition to it being a tragedy, for the insurance co.s, it's a business matter. How do YOU propose that they tell the difference between a person who drives drunk (or tipsy) but have been lucky so far, and people who might die, kill, create enormous medical bills, or wreck expensive property tomorrow?
You mean there is no way to measure actual impairment? You aren't willing to even try?
Fines: These are laws about public safety. You're complaining about paying money because you were caught endangering others. I'm not sure I trust you behind the wheel in any event, knowing that. Let alone that you consulted a lawyer about how to act if (when eventually?) you get caught doing something that could kill people, and took the advice to heart.
You are assuming that he's driving impaired. What if he's not impaired? What if with 0.08 in his system he isn't endangering the public at all?
People with a cold, sniffles, and coughing are perhaps more impaired than he is at 0.08. Should we fine everyone who gets into a car with allergies, or who drives home from work tired with a headache from the cheap lighting?
Those people are more impaired.
Me, I got a ticket last week for holding a phone. Not using it. Holding it; it had fallen out of my jacket pocket, and I'd picked it up to put in the cup holder.
If it had been my wallet instead of my phone, I'd still have my $180 bucks. I wasn't impaired, i wasn't driving distracted, the cop saw me holding an electronic device, and ticketed me.
So consulting ones lawyer in advance is probably a good idea. The system isn't looking for impaired drivers... its looking for an excuse to punish people whether they are impaired or not.
Just be advised that here in CA, not only is refusing a test illegal, it buys you absolutely nothing. A relative of mine was picked up for DUI and taken to the station. He has an intense fear of needles, and freaked out when they tried to stick him. He was slammed to the floor and pinned down by officers while they forcibly drew blood. He had a wicked bruise on his arm to show for it, too.
I see what you did there.
Clearly the intent of the poster was placed upon the state of inebriation. Your last paragraph also deals with this. So in context it would seem that your link suggests that the definition of 'drunk' could be called into question, but it actually just outlines what constitutes 'operating a motor vehicle'. So yeah, it IS pretty easy to avoid drunk driving, contrary to your assertion.
Pretty sneaky, sis.
The machines could be off both ways...In a city that size I bet a few of them who should have been off the streets later went on to cause an accident or fatality.
If the machines were passing people with a real BAC of, say, 0.09, I'd bet against you. And I'm reasonably certain I'd win.
Realize: If someone has a 0.13 and the breathalyzer registers 0.07, it's likely that the cops would notice that the figure was erroneous. The reverse is not true: If someone had a 0.03 and the breathalyzer registered 0.09, there is no way that any cop could tell the difference. I'm reasonably certain that they were not letting drunks go simply because the breathalyzer said they were okay.
That would explain why a cop claimed he measured me at 91,
Yes, a failure to calibrate the breathalyzer would explain this.
even though my cruise control had been set to 79 (plus four over the speed limit).
If you are going to rely on your cruise control, you should be aware that they don't always keep you from going faster than they are set. They will try to accellerate if the car starts to slow, but I don't know of any of them that will put on the brakes if you are going too fast.
You can easily override the speed by resting your foot on the accellerator. The one in my car actually does worse at controlling speed going downhill than just letting the car control itself. I.e., cruise control on, downhill, I can pick up 20MPH, but with it off, the natural engine braking keeps me close to speed.
His equipment was probably not calibrated and giving false readings.
If you are ever stopped for a radar violation, ask to see the equipment calibrated in front of you. It's really easy to do, all they do is hold a tuning fork in front of the antenna. If they refuse, then you have good grounds to claim failure to calibrate as required.
Wikipedia would say "Citation needed." on that.
The first result of a search for "increase in risk of accidents with blood alcohol content" - http://www.saaq.gouv.qc.ca/t2002/actes/pdf/(06a).pdf - indicate a best estimate of 169% increase in risk at .08% BAC. That's a 2.69x higher risk. They're referring other research showing it at 1.88x.
My personal experience with alcohol impairment is that my juggling gets impaired at about half a pint of beer; it doesn't affect anything that I can do well, but it affect all tricks at the edge of my ability. I'm an adult male of over 200 pounds (90+kg). I can't feel that amount at all, but it clearly affect my ability.
Is the 2.69x risk difference something you count as "not sigificantly impaired" (and we just disagree on the definition of significant), or is this a question of difference in research (is there other research I should be aware of) or were you not aware of the actual research levels and may be changing your mind?
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
woot! Lazy piggies cost SF a lot of money during a recession!!!!
The person who should be fired, is the Police Chief. He may of not been directly responsible for checking the Breathalyzers, but he is responsible for the Police Department, and since he didn't do his job, or check up on his staff to make sure they were doing his.
The officers in charge of the Breathalyzers should be canned also, and any cop that used the control sample number should be fined and suspended and made to do police training all over again.
Look, the person in charge is supposed to be in charge. It don't fucking matter if he did shit or not, he's the boss, and he should pay. Not sure why we think the people in charge shouldn't ever bear responsiblity for the people under them, but isn't that what we pay them the big bucks for?
Lazy pigs should be cut up for bacon and ham. Just saying.
Be seeing you...
There are no cops on slashdot.
If you're so (pardon the term) drunk on the taste and sensation of a beer with your dinner that you're in danger of going over, maybe you can't be trusted to know the limit in the first place.
Do you have a moral problem with alcohol? Otherwise I don't understand why you hold it above everything else that might cause impairment.. like eating too much, driving while having to go to the bathroom, driving with kids in the car, driving with loud music, etc. The front line troops of the war on drunk driving are quite obviously motivated by moral issues just like the prudes who supported prohibition.
Thinking of my friends and family and the car accidents they've been in, alcohol was never involved. It was always other distractions. The most serious accident involved a friend of mine who was so focused on adjusting the radio (in a new car) that he rear ended another car at high speed. This was when he was 17 or 18. I bet you anything that there are a ton of sober 17 year olds who are more dangerous than a typical 32 year old with a BAC of 0.1.
Driving will always have an element of danger to it. Far better than focusing on harsh drunk driving laws would be encouraging defensive driving and doing things to reduce the number of drivers on the road with harder driving tests, narrower age limits (including an upper age limit), and better public transportation. Defensive driving is probably the most important of those.. twice in the past decade that I slowed almost to a stop at a green light because someone was quite obviously going to run their red light. Both of those had a decent chance of becoming a major accident if I hadn't noticed and the other person hadn't noticed at the last second either.
to correct a mistake
You misspelled "to punish a 6 year systematic fraud".
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Depends on what you mean by "significantly impaired". Impairment is statistically significant at .02-.03 BAC. If you look at accident statistics, you see the same thing. Just .02 is sufficient to raise your chances of getting in an accident.
I'm not for draconian DUI regulation though. What's the point of being alive if you can't have a little reckless fun once in a while? A much more enlightened way to handle the situation would be to encourage the construction and use of public transportation in the US.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
In some states it is illegal to refuse the test, but in a roundabout way where the fine print of driver's license says "refuse test, and you lose your license". So there isn't a practical "refusal" option everywhere.
Refusing the test may raise suspicion by the cop that you have things that aren't in order.
In Virginia refusing the test gets your license yanked for a good long while.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
These guys messed up big, but the point of the justice system is to correct and reduce crime - you don't do that by taking away people's livelihood.
Yes, you do. If these guys were made an example of, you can bet that everyone else would be a little more conscientious about this in the future. Law enforcement in particular needs to be held to a much higher standard, owing to the power they wield. Besides, how many other people might have lost *their* livelihood on the basis of evidence these guys manufactured without a single thought to the consequences? When a law enforcement officer shows that the law doesn't mean anything to him, it's time for him to find another line of work.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
The problem I have with that scenario is having a law enforcement officer performing a medical procedure without a license. That would result in an instant lawsuit from me. LICENSED Nurse/MD = ok. Anyone else? Not ok.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
In my country breathalyzer is only the first test after which you have to go to the police station and they take a blood sample. A breathalyzer test alone shouldn't be enough.
It looks like you misunderstood what I and several others have been trying to say. Being a responsible adult means either designating someone to be a designated driver or arranging some other way of getting yourself and your girl home after an evening of boozing it up. It's really not that difficult to do, but it does require a little effort and some forethought. If you can't do that, then you deserve to suffer whatever happens to come your way ... I just hope that you don't kill or injure anyone else when you decide to DUI/DWI.
Hey...you got to get your car home for work the next day somehow.
It isn't like a magic fairy will drive it home for you overnight.
I'm undoing mod points by posting this extremely insightful comment: you're an idiot.
http://www.responsiblechoice.ca/index2.htm
That's just one example, that happens to operate in the city I live in. I know for a fact that similar services are available in London, UK (have seen it on Top Gear), and also several other major metropolises, including several in the US. If I felt so inclined, it probably wouldn't take long to find a similar service in whichever city you live in.
Google is your friend.
The reason that the legal limit isn't 0.0 is because they want to be reasonable with the people who have a glass of wine with dinner. It is not because they expect you to tie one on and then drive home. And the reason bars have parking lots is so that you can park there, not so you can find your car and drive home after drinking. Most bars don't have parking lots anywhere near large enough to handle 1 car per patron... perhaps this means they expect you to carpool with a DD, too? Perhaps the lack of cars when you leave the bar is because enough other people are smart enough to plan ahead and either have a DD or a ride, and not need to take their car to the bar?
It's really simple: if you're going to get behind the wheel of a car, then don't fucking drink. Amazingly, not consuming alcohol really doesn't actually impair a night's entertainment, unless the purpose of the night out is to consume alcohol. And quite bluntly, if you intend to consume alcohol as your sole source of entertainment, then you can do it a *lot* cheaper by stopping by the liquor store and buying a few bottles, then taking them home to drink. If you *really* want to go out for a night on the town and get drunk for the purpose of getting drunk, then plan ahead. Take a taxi or a bus. It's really not that hard, and it doesn't put the lives of everybody else on the road at risk.
No one said it is. At least in VA the condition is called "Driving Under The Influence", which it most certainly is. Drunk is not mentioned in the statues as far as I know, however 'intoxicated' is.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Nothing you've written invalidates anything that I've written.
Instead of fuzzy and non-attributed "laws", how about the specifics?
Gascon's comment that there was "no malicious intent" is simply ludicrous coming from the mouth of the official in charge of prosecuting criminal actions. It's not like someone said, "whoops, got the radar from the un-calibrated shelf by mistake - better make the appropriate report and nullify the incorrectly issued citations." This is a case people tasked with an important duty that rests at the core of investigating and prosecuting drunk driving instead wilfully and intentionally falsified reports for over half a decade. If Gascon were a competent prosecutor he would be familiar with California Penal Code section 118.1. Since he apparently is not, I quote:
"118.1. Every peace officer who files any report with the agency which employs him or her regarding the commission of any crime or any investigation of any crime, if he or she knowingly and intentionally makes any statement regarding any material matter in the report which the officer knows to be false, whether or not the statement is certified or otherwise expressly reported as true, is guilty of filing a false report punishable by imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year, or in the state prison for one, two, or three years. This section shall not apply to the contents of any statement which the peace officer attributes in the report to any other person."
Any questions other than how many counts they are guilty of or how the "miracle never-emptying bottle of calibration gas" went unnoticed by supervisors?
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
"Run, Forrest, run!"
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Well, maybe. But it's well known in the software industry that a large percentage of users of most software will handle "fill in the form" situations by copying the examples in the manual.
Yeah, well, in any regulated industry EVERYBODY knows this is unacceptable, a violation of company policy, and illegal. People caught doing things like this in roles like aircraft mechanics, doctors, clinical lab techs, evidence handling, or food/drug testing are almost always immediately terminated and turned over to the relevant regulatory agency. Usually regulations allow people doing such things to be punished personally for them, and of course the company ends up in hot water as well.
In fact, in such industries companies are usually required to prove that they train their employees to be aware of such things. There is no allowance for incompetence where things of this importance are at stake.
In some states it is illegal to refuse the test, but in a roundabout way where the fine print of driver's license says "refuse test, and you lose your license". So there isn't a practical "refusal" option everywhere.
I think that's part of the "implied consent" part of the law; refusal results in license suspension.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
In Germany there is no conviction without a blood test. Breath analyzers are seen as way too inaccurate to base a conviction on them alone. You will get very high values after using an alcohol-containing mouthspray, and remaining alcohol in the mouth from drinking shortly before also has a strong influence. But even without that the breath alcohol concentration can differ from the blood concentration.
No, I trust my own nose when someone who is reeking of booze and can't walk straight should be noted as such. Then you take them for a proper blood test. People who are trained for that and see it every day can tell the difference between (literally) stinking drunk and, say, being in a diabetic crash.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
That's not a very strong study. The groups are self-selecting and by admitting data from people hours after they were known to be driving says little about their state of intoxication when they were driving (that is, do a hit and run, then go to a bar to steady the nerves).
For all we know, all of the non-participants were drunk. Remove self-selection and provide ALL of the data and it becomes a convincing study.
Why should anyone believe the SFPD, though, that it was that professional experience and not the fact that the cop in question thought the person being arrested was a royal jackass?
The breathalyzer and blood tests remove the qualitative and moves things into the quantitative domain. And no matter how good the quantitative results can be, they are still inherently weaker than qualitative.
And now that the department has been shown to engage in systematic deception, it weakens the quantitative aspects substantially.
Check your premises.
Do the tests now. If the breathalyzers fail, then let's talk. If they pass the tests, then the convictions should stand.
So yeah, it IS pretty easy to avoid drunk driving, contrary to your assertion.
To you or I, sure. But the thread was about avoiding driving drunk according to Johnny Law's standards. And when Johnny Law decides that the threshold for "legally drunk" is lower than you are capable of sensing, or that sleeping in your car that is safely parked in a parking lot constitutes "drunk driving", then suddenly it's not so easy.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
The problem is that blood-alcohol level isn't a good measure of actual inebriation. It's the wrong metric.
Bullshit. This has been researched to death and is why almost every country has a limit from 0.02 to 0.08.
http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa25.htm
The problem with intoxication, is you actually FEEL more competant than you actually are.
The USA at 0.08 has the highest legal level of countries that enforce alchohol intoxication while driving.
46137
Hmm..I dunno where you live...but down here, bars have large lots, and if not, the streets around them are packed, and often yes, one car per patron. This is the US, remember, people don't carpool here.
And for your other answers, I'm guess you just don't hit bars that often...what you state isn't the case. In bars, I see most people in there consuming WAY beyond what the legal limit is...and they leave there not only to go home, but to 'hop' to other bars, and carry on drinking.
Seriously, people that go to bars and drink...the ones that are really concerned about a designated driver (I've never personally met one), or not driving are a tiny minority. Most people leaving a bar are well over legally intoxicated, and yes...they do drive home.
And no..sitting drinking at home, not fun...MUCH more fun to go out and do it with the large number of other people doing the same thing. Besides, you just don't usually have as easy a time picking up chicks sitting at home drinking alone, as you do going out to a bar, being social and talking to them. And especially with women...alcohol is the perfect "conversation lubrication".
You may not like it...but it is a fact of life. If you have public places server alcohol, then, the main draw of people to that place is drinking...and no, they aren't worried about having one drink per hour. The lines at the bar waiting for more drinks kinda proves that one out.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I mean, if I'm so plastered, that I can't walk...sure I'll find a way, but if I'm ok to drive..I drive.
Just like everyone else......of course, practice helps, and knowing to take back roads, and make sure you go the speed limit, etc.
Hell, the only time I bother looking at what the speed limit is...is after I've had a few.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Now there's green transportation to you. I eagerly await the introduction of the Ford Fir Tree to the market.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
There's no excuse for this, whoever is in charge of that calibration really needs to get their heads handed to them.
Fuel cell based units go out of cal (I used to do hundreds a week), so it is inexcusable they didn't calibrate.
I worked for Phoenix Police
I'm not sure how it works in the USA, but in Australia, police use portable fuel cell based instruments which are accurate to 0.01 BAC when calibrated.
The portable instrument readings cannot be used in court, so are backed up by either a blood sample check at hospital, or an infrared evidential quality unit.
An IR unit will take a pre sample reading from a reference ethanol gas, then the human sample, then the reference gas again which is printed out in front of the subject. You feel really screwed then!
46137
Breathalyzers have quite a few inherent issues, i feel. The first and foremost is that they use some formula to blanket determine the "too drunk to be driving" limit for all people. There is such a thing as functional tolerance with alcohol.
The second thing is that the formula takes the "breath alcohol to blood alcohol ratio" to determine BAC. Perhaps I am being naive here, but what if some alcohol comes out of your mouth and goes into the device... wouldn't that result in a much higher reading?
But mainly I feel that I shouldn't be charged with a crime if I haven't actually done a crime. Sure doing certain things is stupid, but unless it adversely affects someone else or their property, how is that a crime?
Oh, you'll also be paying in points. Those confer, too.
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Right, 'cause ruining somebody's life is always the best way to correct a mistake and will never have unintended consequences... These guys messed up big, but the point of the justice system is to correct and reduce crime - you don't do that by taking away people's livelihood.
You'll "correct and reduce crime" if you create an example strong enough so that no other cop ever falsifies evidence. But even so, nobody wants to take away their livelihood. Dunkin' Donuts is probably hiring.
You don't necessarily have to go there to contest it. Some states/counties have provisions to submit a defense by mail hand have a judge review it and then rule.
I once got out of a speeding ticket from a county in Oregon by writing a not-very-nice letter to the judge claiming the cop was outright lying and the purpose of the stop was revenue generation. The judge replied and was not particularly happy about my choice of wording, but ruled in my favor despite the fact that I was inches from the line between outraged and outright contempt for the behavior of their county's deputies.
The cops are legally obligated to do a thing, and lie and say they have without doing it.
You fire them.
That's straight-up perjury, because this shit unquestionably at some point became evidence in a trial.
If a cop fails to read someone their Miranda rights, what happens? Cop is reprimanded, accused walks free, right? What about when the cop and the police force all collude to LIE, and say that they treated all arrests in an utmost legal manner, and years later it is discovered that, GOSH! It was a pack of lies, and people suffered legal consequences due to the *intentional* subversion of legal procedure by a few officers?
String 'em high, isn't it?
Cops = fired, charged with crime, good-fucking-bye. Do you really want anyone that fucking lazy and ignorant to REMAIN a cop? Or are you ONE OF those cops?
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
The point of the low BAC limit is to reinforce the message that you don't drink and drive.
The 0.08 is really just a degree of tolerance.
I'm not advocating this position, this is just my impression from the various information I've come across on the topic.
Back in the day, people would go out, get pissed and drive home. It was just the done thing, a social norm. A friend might not let you if obviously very drunk, but driving in a state the vast majority of people now wouldn't even consider was just normal. Death rates were terrible then and the roads are a lot busier now.
So the position now is you do not go out, drink, and drive home. At all. The 0.08 is there only as a bit of leeway for situations where a small amount of alcohol may be incidental, for example a glass of wine with a meal.
The idea that you should only be punished for being unfit to drive is a totally reasonable and just one. The problem though, most people don't know when they're unfit to drive and the effects of alcohol on judgement and confidence do not help. Being unfit is also judgemental and difficult to police - particularly when someone's driving ability can be significantly impaired in ways that are otherwise subtle. What I suspect is most important however, is the message - the marketing, really - that drinking and driving is not at all accepted. A hard line, straightforward rule primarily aimed to combat a destructive social norm.
So instead of the truly just approach we have the one that works. Whether this is ideologically acceptable to you probably (I suspect, anyway) depends on your perspective on driving. It's probably unacceptable if you view driving on roads as your right, since rights should only be taken away by the authorities if the authorities have good and just reason to do so. The onus is on them to demonstrate exactly why you cannot exercise your right.
On the other hand, it is more likely to be acceptable if you view driving on roads as a privilege, as the onus there is on you complying with the rules set down by the ones granting you that privilege. All the authorities need to show then is that their rule - their restriction on the privileged you have been granted - is overall a good thing, something which the statistics do very well.
Personally I do veer towards this stance since I don't personally own the roads, other people have the same rights as me. It seems intuitively obvious that a very high duty of care comes along with commanding a ton or two of machinery at 70mph anywhere near other people.
It may be worth noting at this point that the US and UK's 0.08 BAC is the highest on this list of 230 countries' limits. There are 12 countries listed with no limit, but I don't recall the Congo or Ethiopia being held up as good examples of anything.
minor > none!
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Friend of mine from a police family says "If you get ticketed by someone with a hand-held radar gun, ask them for a reading on a stationary object."
Precision, of course, isn't quite the same as accuracy.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I'm not sure of the details, as it's been several years now, but all I know is several officers 'subdued' him while the blood was taken. It may have been a nurse-type individual doing the actual sticking, but the fact that he was treated like a farm animal is disturbing. Yes he was intoxicated, but he was in legitimate mental distress at the sight of the needle, and was not treated with any sort of respect or dignity. Just thrown to the ground like a sack of potatoes, crushed under the weight of several people, and then stabbed in the arm.
It's pretty widely-known about speed measurement devices, though apparently not so widely known that the police have actually gotten their shit together in keeping them calibrated.
Breathalyzers?
Dude, you're talking about MADD here -- that is, the renamed Women's Temperance Union, that is, just a bunch of fucking teetotalling Puritanical bastards.
If you DARE question their motives or methodology or conclusions, you are an Evil, Bad, Awful Person, and probably drunk, selling cocaine to children, and importing Asian teens as sex slaves.
Just look at the posts here! For every post someone makes suggesting to refuse a breathalyzer (or to insist on a blood test, when refusing a breathalyzer results in harsher punishments..), there's a post from someone screaming "OMG JUST DON'T DRIVE DRUNK YOU MONSTER!"
Despite this being a discussion on *breathalyzers not fucking working properly*, despite people getting pulled over and accused of drinking while not having drunk anything that day or recently. Clearly, in those situations, with that knowledge -- only a drunkard would refuse!
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
and when you take the breath test and it reads positive (even though you haven't had a drink).. then what? then they can argue that you where drunk by by the time they did the blood test hours later that it had cleared out.. you get accused - they have evidence - but you were innocent.
I only note that because i've had one read positive on me even though i hadn't drunk a thing.. it was one of the "show & tell" deals for entry they do at fairs.. that's an eye opener..
Always refuse the breath test and request a blood test.. if the officer wants to try to nail you for drunk driving he has to accept the blood test.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
You forgot Mexico and New Mexico....
Replying to undo bad mod. But I agree with you, wholeheartedly. In fact, I'll take it a step further: criminal charges for those responsible, and if found guilty, incarcerate them with the population they helped put away. This should be the rule for every LEO and judge caught abusing their offices.
I didn't RTF study because acroread is incredibly slow on my work SUSE desktop, but if the 2.69x increase is from 100 in 1,000,000,000 to 269 in 1,000,000,000, then it's an insignificant difference and should not be the basis of legislation.
Is the impairment shown to be relevant to the task of driving? We allow driving under a number of impairments such as while tired, while angry, with screaming kids in the back, etc.
NHTSA data is somewhat suspect unless examined very carefully since they class an accident where a sober driver hits a tipsy pedestrian as 'alcohol related'.
I'm certainly not in favor of drunk driving, I just prefer that we keep a sense of proportion about it so we don't harshly punish people not causing harm.
As far as the people subduing him were concerned, a farm animal is exactly what he was. A misbehaving farm animal at that.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
I don't know where the GPP was referring to but in NSW, Australia, if you've been driving for less than three years (have a provisional licence), .02 is the limit and it's .05 once you have a full licence.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
It's entirely possible the penalty and consequences of refusing a test is less serious than the penalty and consequences of failing a test. It's important to know the specific law in your jurisdiction if you intend to go this route. For example, it wont work if the law regards refusing a test to be an admission of guilt.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
No. Cops know the difference between 90 and 80. Anyone who has been driving for a while does. If he claimed he measured you at 91 and you had your cruise control set at 79, he was simply lying. Cops do it all the time, and get away with it because the judges believe them no matter what.
They don't want to be fired, charged with multiple felonies then sent to enjoy the company of the people they sent to jail? The solution is similar to the one regularly proposed to drunk drivers. Just do the calibration like the procedures say they should. Easy.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
You should know that, depending on where you are, refusing the roadside breath test is a criminal offence with the punishment being the same as failing the breath test (worse in fact because it is considered an aggravating factor).
The previous is valid anywhere in Canada, under Section 254(5) of the Criminal Code of Canada.
The answer IS 42.
"but the point of the justice system is to correct and reduce crime" These cops committed crimes. Perjury in each of at least six years worth of DUI prosecutions. Obstruction of justice in each of at least six yars worth of DUI prosecutions. The list goes on and on. Their crimes need to be corrected and reduced.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
And they will be good guys. Just as soon as they've done their time.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
In the US: 32708 per year; it's about .011% of population per year. 32% of fatal crashes involves a BAC of .08 or more. 41% of crashes involve alcohol at all.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
"Times however many instances of people prosecuted"
FTFY
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
LOL Dude!
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
there are many documented cases of xray equipment malfuction and bad software and/or hardware interlocks failing to prevent overexposure in those cases.
Despite the monkey of the FDA sitting on backs of engineers who designed the thing.
I'm just waiting for one of these to happen on one of these airport scanners.
You will not know it, and even if it was you who got the overexposure they won't tell you. They will just say "step over here, please, for a manual pat-down." No explanations will be forthcoming; a peon has no right to ask for one.
TSA has no duty to tell you anything. Scanner operators are not trained radiologists with diplomas and with their licenses to practice medicine on the line (if not their freedom) if they screw up or if they try to hide the evidence. They are not even trained techs who can tell, if the scanner fails, how exactly it failed and whether any harm was done. They also have every reason to not know any of that, willingly. Ignorance and work instructions are their shield against liability. If an overexposure happens they will keep a poker face and will send the injured passenger away.
For all we know, every scanner that is not in use at an airport may have failed, catastrophically, on someone. That someone was not notified; the scanner operator knows that it will take a long time for the damage to develop - and good luck then associating a malignancy here or there to a specific scanner at a specific airport. TSA will not even allow an investigation; this scanner program is backed by very powerful political interests. TSA already can do to passengers whatever the hell it pleases, and if anyone complains they can have them arrested and fined for financial destruction ($10K is a lot.)
No reasonable engineer would even come close to such a scanner unless there is a sufficient reason to believe that it is safe. Such a reason would have to be pretty extensive, such as design for safety, audits and test reports for everything, periodic calibration, and tests of interlocks. On the design side a safe scanner may have, for example, two independent safety circuits, implemented in different ways (one MCU, one CPLD) and fed from independent sensors. If any of these safety circuits triggers then a fuse inside of a locked, sealed compartment gets blown, the entire scanner turns off, and only a tech with a key and a seal can change the fuse and personally verify that the problem had been fixed. Of course every scanner that I would design would also keep a log, of "black box" style, in an internal EEPROM that can't be erased unless you have a specific crypto key (techs would have those, but not the operators.) Once the EEPROM fills up (or after some preset time elapses) the scanner also shuts off, and a tech must come and perform the periodic inspection and calibration. This is the equipment where a failure endangers safety of people; the system designed by me will enforce the rules.
Offer the people wrongly convicted of DUI well paid jobs doing the calibrations.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
Hi, conjecture, this is fact speaking. Laws depend on the wording in your state, and enforcement depends on the officers and their training in your state, and how cases go depends on the local rulings and people selected for the jury.
In other words, you might as well shake the magic 8 ball as opposed to rely on your comment.
If the officer screwed up the test, you are not factually drunk. Once you are ruled guilty, it is a fact. If the conviction (or plea) is thrown into doubt, it is no longer a fact, and must be proven by the prosecution. If the only evidence they have is the Breathylazer result, and that is doubted by undocumented (or explicitly falsified) testing, you are no longer factually drunk. The prosecution must rely on other evidence, which will probably be presented, if it exists, at another trial.
Most juries will be instructed to evaluate the evidence presented, with the Breathalyzer results supressed. Given that, there is no way for you to say how they would likely rule it.
The thing is, if he says he clocked you at 91, and you tell him you were actually only going 79... you've still admitted to speeding, with the exact same fine as if you were going 91 (I'm assuming reckless driving or similar charges comes in at +20 mph like most places).
Not to mention the fact you said your cruise control was set to a speed, rather than actually having looked at your speedometer. If you're going downhill, your car will probably be going considerably faster than your cruise control is set for (unless modern cruise controls actually apply breaks, which I haven't heard of).
It's not just police. This is the sort of thing that people in offices don't understand - this always happens in the field. It doesn't matter how much training you do, people in the field just don't give a damn about this sort of thing. If you give them extra time and resources to make sure that calibration is done correctly, they will take the opportunity to go home early, have a long lunch, or take a nap. I've seen this in the military, in the private sector, and especially with contractors to the government. This is why systems always need to be designed to be much more robust than they technically need to be.
Of course, it goes beyond this: I have had jobs where I received written instructions on how to do the job, but no equipment to do the job with. At McMurdo Station I was given the work order to inspect every electrical panel on the station with a thermal imaging camera to check for overheating. One small problem: we did not have such a camera, the next incoming flight was four months away, and no one was going to send the equipment anyway. So I ended up just going around and manually tightening all the screws on the connections, and looking for scorch marks.
Perhaps this can be an object lesson for the engineers at Slashdot who actually design things.
"Ya know what else doesn't get calibrated?
The scanners run by the SA at airports."
I know that was a typo, but it's a good one (Godwin? ha.) Refreshing my memory, Google gives as the 2nd result: "In 1921 Adolf Hitler formed his own private army called Sturm Abteilung (Storm Section). The SA (also known as stormtroopers or brownshirts)..."
I think we should start referring to the TSA as the " 'SA".
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Whoops, apparently wasn't logged in on this computer when I posted. The above comment (starting with "Yes, laws vary from state to state") is me.
Mine ( a Honda accord) certainly DOES put on the brakes.. I noticed it , in fact , when going down a steep incline..
if you do not give them a reason to 'turn your car over' (search it) then you have a bit more power in court, should it get to that.
this is a trick the cops are now trying; to get you to be impatient so that you can 'look suspicious' to them and that gives them the right (in their eyes) to search you 'for dangerous weapons'.
Note that they cannot search your vehicle under the pretext of officer safety if you get out (and of course, they make you get out to perform the search), since the presumed weapons are no longer accessible to you.
Oh my god! Do not get out of the car if you're pulled over! Unless you're ordered to, that is interpreted as extremely intimidating and you will get a gun pulled on you followed by much yelling. You're more likely to get your car searched (though the windows at first, then by hand after probable cause is found) if you start off the encounter by pissing them off.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
I would like to see this magical xray cathode tube which can focus all of its output in a single spot/beam/line/whateverthefuck.
Then please see here. That was an article from 1996. Any engineer worth his salt would have checked Google when working on this scanner several years later.
Having been a technician on xray equipment for many years, I can tell you that the tube produces a CONE of gamma energy, and the ONLY way to even make a "collimated" beam, is to use dense plates to BLOCK the scattered radiation from propagating.
This is not correct at all. You are limiting the entire world down to specific hardware that you are working with. That hardware likely was designed decades ago, and any changes would require a complex and costly set of FDA tests and approvals. In the larger world there are mirrors for X rays (for certain incidence angles), and there are now lenses. X ray and gamma ray astronomy depends on these things. I would certainly consider focusing if I need to design such a scanner today.
Besides, your statement is wrong when you debate the "entire output of the X-ray tube." It all depends on where you measure it, and since we have no information on density of X rays anywhere in the system, debating the collimator is not very practical, like saying that a nuclear bomb is safe within 10 meters because this here gizmo reduces the radiation a thousand times. You need to know what the radiation level is before the gizmo.
You need to take into account one simple fact. The TSA scanner depends on scattering of X ray photons. This means that the X ray sensor has to be sensitive enough to detect reflections of the beam from the victim's skin. But X rays easily penetrate skin, so you need a lot of incoming photons to get some that bounce back. This translates into higher beam density. Exact numbers are not known; the tube itself may be dangerous, and its narrow beam may be also dangerous - they don't tell and we don't know.
You must not be familiar with the San Francisco Crime Lab. Or how the fallout impacted the people involved.
The revolution will be mocked
The point of the low BAC limit is to reinforce the message that you don't drink and drive.
No, it's to reinforce the message that you don't drive drunk. And 0.08 is not drunk.
Back in the day, people would go out, get pissed and drive home ... So the position now is you do not go out, drink, and drive home. At all.
Why not? Obligatory Wikipedia link to the fallacy you're using.
But I digress. Let's ignore all of that for now and just play a simple little game. The figures I have seen indicate that the risk multiplier at a BAC of 0.08 is about 2x normal (at a BAC of 0.00). Risk also generally scales linearly with respect to miles driven (at least for comparable driving conditions; city and highway driving aren't necessarily the same).
So, here is the game: I will present you with two situations where there is more or less equal risk involved. You will tell me which situation is an example of someone who poses a grave danger to himself and other drivers, and which situation is perfectly okay.
Situation 1: A guy has 3 beers on a Saturday afternoon and then drives to the store to buy some eggs for Sunday's breakfast. He has a BAC of slightly over 0.08, which is the legal limit. At this level of intoxication, his risk of being involved in a collision is about twice what it would be if there were no alcohol in his blood. This could be easily avoided if he simply didn't drink before driving.
Situation 2: This guy believes that drinking and driving is never okay in any amount, so his trip to the store is made at a flat 0.00 BAC. However, he's a poor planner because a day or two later he's taking the trash out and discovers that he has run out of trash bags, and he has to make a second trip to the same store to buy more bags. He ends up driving twice as far, and the risk is twice as much. This would be easily avoided if he just checked around the house before he left and made a list of everything he needed to avoid making extra trips in the near future.
Which of these two men is vilified as a menace to society?
Oh my god! Do not get out of the car if you're pulled over! Unless you're ordered to
You overlooked the part where GP recommended to ask if you may leave your vehicle. Asking is not intimidating and if you're given permission then you can safely get out without trouble.
Not a typo. ;-) Ditto the DHS teams that call themselves VIPR and harass people at train terminals, along highways, at post offices, and wherever else they turn up.
I almost always refer to the TSA as the SA.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"