jaybird
Have I slipped into some kind of parallel universe? Here I am agreeing with jaybird and disagreeing with Dave!
Women Busted for DUI For Pushing Car 1888So they were charged with operating a motor vehicle while looped. Great. Why does the law say motor vehicle? Everyone here wants to just gloss over the word, as if removing the...
It's real simple, my rallying friend. Whenever there is an exception carved out with respect to DUI, there's a drunk out there ready to exploit it. The one you're describing would allow a drunk to simply turn off the engine and coast past an officer. Is that illegal? Yeah; coasting is, in most states. So is public intoxication. But neither carries the same sanctions as a DUI.
So the next logical step is, how fast can you coast? Frankly, having been through Portage, Indiana many times, the answer is "not very fast". But I've been over Loveland Pbutt in Colorado, too. Ain't many speed limits in the US you *couldn't* break coasting down there.
Even the discreet drunks that try to sleep it off in their cars get busted every day under the stretched definition of "operating". I don't have a big problem with that as a strong policy decision *against* drunk driving. At least the universe hasn't gotten so twisted that I'd ever agree with the moron in this thread whose name doesn't bear mentioning, but the US is far more lax with DUI violators than are many other countries, and there's no need to be. When it gets to the point that hearing about DUI-related crashes, injuries, and baneities is *unusual*, I'll go along with easing up; but until then, I'm willing to be a hardliner along with that damn Texas cop. -- C.R. Krieger
