DUI Checkpoint refusal

[I HATE PONIES]

Dont drink and drive, you wont have anything to worry about.

Good tip!

Fight to get all the check points taken off then road, then dont bitch when a
drunk crashes into your families minivan and kills everyone except for
him/herself.

This makes perfect sense. After all most of the drunks go through the checkpoint. If they did not go through the checkpoint they are obviosly harmless.

LEO's are stretched thin as it is.

Plenty of time to man/waste at a checkpoint but unable to respond to a real problem. I.E. I will be there in a few days to get a report about your burglery but I'm too busy just now.


Its funny, everyone seems to give the guys enforcing the rules shit until something bad happens to them.

It's funny that everyone gives the O.K. to be fucked with for no apparent reason. Then they are told when they need helpfrom the cops they are too busy fucking with other people to help.

 

[Axel]

Back to my original statement, dont drink and drive.

Nobody disagrees with that statement.

But I believe your statement was actually "Don't drink and drive, then you won't have anything to worry about." That is a slightly different statement, and implies that anyone who has a problem with checkpoints wants to be able to drive drunk.

It's the same kind of argument the anti-choice crowd uses by calling themselves "Pro Life". If you disagree with them it is then implied that you must be anti-life. Or, if you have a problem with the ever expanding smoking regulations, it logically follows that you must be pro-smoking. (And a six pack a day chain smoker).

Sure, driving is a privilege - not a right. And there has to be rules, we can't all decide for ourselves which side of the road we want to drive on. Nobody is advocating driving drunk, either.

But there also has to be rules for how to enforce the rules. And if enough people disagree with the rules, there is a process in place to change them. Bitching about the rules is part of that process. Rules and laws can be changed, there are 27 amendments to the Constitution to back that statement up.

On a smaller scale, in my town we kicked out the mayor and his cronies at the last election, because there was a majority in town who disagreed with the way the town was managed. It worked too, 2012 is the second year in a row that property taxes has not been significantly increased, and some services previously cut are now being restored.

I don't care if some courts have found that checkpoints are legal. I still think they are wrong, and a waste of time. If the law allows them, then the law is wrong too, and should be changed. It has been done before. Alcohol was illegal in the United States 90 or so years ago. It isn't anymore.

 

[Durt D1ver]

"Had" is the operative word. They also extended this regulation to anyone traveling through the state.

OTOH, Michigan does extend the same rights that a person's home state extends to them. I found this curious as it used to state in the hunting rules that folks from New Jersey were not allowed to hunt in Michigan unless they had been granted a license to own a gun in NJ-thus effectively disallowing anyone from NJ to hunt in Michigan.

Nj gun laws are if not the most, then one of the most restrictive in the usa. You need govt issued firearms id card to even buy ammo, except some rifle calibers and shotgun shells. You need a firearms id card to even possess a firearm. For each handgun you want to purchase, you have to apply for a pistol purchase permit for each handgun you wish to purchase. That permit is only good for 90 days, and you may need to be fingerprinted before each one is issued. It took me over a month to get my pistol purchase permit for my recent lcp purchase. All handguns are registered with the state. And ccw permits are impossible to obtain.

 

[bri]

exactly. I got in a wreck a few years ago at 3am. I was still in college and had been studying not drinking. I was on a road they were repaving and it was raining so I spun out and hit the solicitor's office of all places. Cop immediately thought I HAD to be drunk so with no field sobriety or anything he immediately put me in cuffs. I get to jail and blow a 0.0. Cop then charges me with disorderly conduct. In the bond hearing in the morning (I was given no phone call) the idiot cop told the judge that I was "very polite and cooperative". Judge asked me if I had any questions. I was like how do I get disorderly conduct while being described as "polite and cooperative" and I told the judge I knew he charged me with that because he had already arrested me, had my car impounded, and had me at jail so he figured he'd charge me with something. Judge dropped my disorderly and my lawyer won a case regarding the road not being properly finished with enough grip. The city had to pay for my car to be fixed and a small amount in damages (I could have gone after more but I didn't really want or need it and wanted to be sure I'd win).

The funny part of it is that my dad hit two parked cop cars when he was about the same age and also got out of it due to the road being unfinished and too slick. Without that happening in the past I'd have never known to look into it.

It didn't end there...about a month later the idiots at the city tried to send me a property damage bill for the damage I did to the solicitor's office. My lawyer laughed and took care of it. My buddy in the car got some money from the city as well because his neck was hurt and he asked for medical help and they told him he could go get it on his own and that it wasn't their problem. They don't solve any real crimes here (numbers on solving robberies are among the worst in the nation) but they get awards for giving out ridiculous amounts of DUIs.

I don't disagree with you on how this was handled, but IMO, the accident was your fault. Too fast for conditions.

 

[garrett]

Oddly enough my GF was stopped in the middle of the day down here in Aiken, SC yesterday at a check point of some kind. They asked her for license and registration. The guy in front of her apparently got some kind of non moving violation. Apparently it is common down here, but that's fucked up.

 

[AMCM Disco]

Utah House just passed yesterday a bill banning police checkpoints as unconstitutional. The House supporters said they'd rather throw that money into surge patrols during peak times to better combat DUI's.

 

[ptschram]

Utah House just passed yesterday a bill banning police checkpoints as unconstitutional. The House supporters said they'd rather throw that money into surge patrols during peak times to better combat DUI's.

Woo Hoo!

IIRC, Utah also allows CCW on college campuses.

 

[kzack]

It might be time to re-read Orwell's '1984'.

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

 

[stu454]

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

That's 'Animal Farm'.

 

[KBW7]

I don't disagree with you on how this was handled, but IMO, the accident was your fault. Too fast for conditions.

Normally I would have been going a decent speed. I had a g37 with summer tires that were good in the rain. The road being unfinished and it being that late at night I was going too fast. The road being unfinished is why I wasn't charged for going too fast for conditions (they never ticketed me for that in the first place).

Talking about getting pulled over without reason I was pulled the other night for going "too slow"...I was on the phone so I got in the right lane on a 35mph road and was going about 25 (almost zero traffic at that time of night). It isn't against the law to text or use the phone here so I was fine but the cop kept grilling me and shining his light in my eyes I guess because he thought I once again must be drunk to be out that late going slow. I told the guy that 25 was as fast as my discovery could handle which he didn't think was too funny but I guess at that point he realized I wasn't drunk so he let me go. His reasoning was that I looked suspicious by driving that slow.

 

[brian4d]

Normally I would have been going a decent speed. I had a g37 with summer tires that were good in the rain. The road being unfinished and it being that late at night I was going too fast. The road being unfinished is why I wasn't charged for going too fast for conditions (they never ticketed me for that in the first place).

Talking about getting pulled over without reason I was pulled the other night for going "too slow"...I was on the phone so I got in the right lane on a 35mph road and was going about 25 (almost zero traffic at that time of night). It isn't against the law to text or use the phone here so I was fine but the cop kept grilling me and shining his light in my eyes I guess because he thought I once again must be drunk to be out that late going slow. I told the guy that 25 was as fast as my discovery could handle which he didn't think was too funny but I guess at that point he realized I wasn't drunk so he let me go. His reasoning was that I looked suspicious by driving that slow.

Suspicious driving is not a reason to pull someone. I got pulled for the same thing and and the case was dropped.

 

[AMCM Disco]

Had a guy at my squadron in VA that was doing less than 5 mph down the road in his neighborhood during one of the infamous VA ice storms - he slid into a parked cop car and was ticketed with "too fast for conditions".

Clearly conditions and relative speed is left open for interpretation for what's reasonable.

Hopefully Utah will finish passing this and set the tone for other states.

<edit for spell check>

 

[bri]

Uninfluenced by anything other than you and the environment, you were driving too fast for conditions, right?

Ice is not an excuse to have an accident.

 

[KBW7]

Uninfluenced by anything other than you and the environment, you were driving too fast for conditions, right?

Ice is not an excuse to have an accident.

No and the court agreed with me in the lawsuit. I was going about the speed limit of 35

 

[KBW7]

Uninfluenced by anything other than you and the environment, you were driving too fast for conditions, right?

Ice is not an excuse to have an accident.

to add it was rain not ice. I live in the south...even though it was January it was about 30 degrees too warm for ice.

 

[bri]

Still think it is B.S. I guess it is OK to take up court hours for something that is really your fault, regardless of the road condition. If there were construction signs and you skidded due to speed its too fast for conditions and I really see no possible argument about it. Ice, rain, fog, potholes, non-finished road... doesn't really matter.

Phone? How about get off the f'ing phone for crying out loud. I've seen other idiots talking on the phone going 20 MPH under on the freeway. Total hazard.

 

[KBW7]

Still think it is B.S. I guess it is OK to take up court hours for something that is really your fault, regardless of the road condition. If there were construction signs and you skidded due to speed its too fast for conditions and I really see no possible argument about it. Ice, rain, fog, potholes, non-finished road... doesn't really matter.

Phone? How about get off the f'ing phone for crying out loud. I've seen other idiots talking on the phone going 20 MPH under on the freeway. Total hazard.

There was no construction signs...there was a reason I won the case. Also I was far from being on the freeway when I was on my phone. Not sure why you are even fussing about it. Was the cities fault and the court found it that way.

 

[bri]

I find it somewhat disturbing that that a slick road makes it somehow an excuse to have an accident and find someone other than the driver at fault. If it is slick and raining slow down until you are within your ability to drive. Its seems to me a lot like blaming a ski area for running unto a tree because you hit a patch of unmanicured slope.

IMO anyone on the telephone driving especially 20MPH under is a hazard.

"The road being unfinished and it being that late at night I was going too fast. "

Doesn't that say enough?

 

[ptschram]

Right, wrong, or indifferent, the Court found him innocent and that is the end of the argument.

 

[Nomar]

that is the end of the argument.

LOL
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