So 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 word makes no difference. Well, if the legislature had meant to make a law that was for every vehicle imaginable, including donkey carts, then why the hell did they bother writing the word "motor" in most of the laws?
Here's New York State's definition (1st one I could find on the internet in a search):
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S 1192. Operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
1. Driving while ability impaired. No person shall operate a motor vehicle while the person`s ability to operate such motor vehicle is impaired by the consumption of alcohol.
2. Driving while intoxicated; per se. No person shall operate a motor vehicle while such person has .10 of one per centum or more by weight of alcohol in the person`s blood as shown by chemical analysis of such person`s blood, breath, urine or saliva, made pursuant to the provisions of section eleven hundred ninety-four of this article.
3. Driving while intoxicated. No person shall operate a motor vehicle while in an intoxicated condition.
4. Driving while ability impaired by drugs. No person shall operate a motor vehicle while the person`s ability to operate such a motor vehicle is impaired by the use of a drug as defined in this chapter.
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# 5 starts talking about commerical vehicles, so I didn't include after that. But notice the word "motor" in each section? Think the legislature meant for the cop to simply ignore it? The word "motor" confers some expectation that a vehicle is capable of certain things that make operating one more dangerous, such as the ability to attain high speed. Pushed vehicles have no capability to attain high speed.
Now, Indiana, I was able to find, has a different wording:
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Indiana Operating While Intoxicated Laws
Chapter 5. Operating a Vehicle While Intoxicated (Effective July 1, 2001)
IC 9-30-5-1 Sec. 1. (a) A person who operates a vehicle with an alcohol concentration equivalent to at least eight-hundredths (0.08) gram of alcohol but less than fifteen-hundredths (0.15) gram of alcohol per: (1) one hundred (100) milliliters of the person's blood; or (2) two hundred ten (210) liters of the person's breath; commits a Clbutt C misdemeanor.
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Their law says, "operate a vehicle". OK, maybe these chicks can get charged - and maybe the prosecutor will still have a tough time at least for the one that was originally the pbuttenger. For a complete understanding, I suppose we'd need an Indiana legal definition of "vehicle" and "operating". Maybe the cops there can jail some tipsy skateboarders, too depending on how they define vehicles and operating.
Where I'm coming from is not to exonerate DUI perpetrators - I just don't like the way things are going, which is the making of damn near everything that anybody does illegal in one way or another, in ways you can't really imagine unless you spend 4 years reading in a law library, so some cop can charge you with something you don't have a clue that the state considers wrong just cuz he doesn't like your looks. But it seems to be going that way - things are really getting stretched, as the recent watering rescuer getting arrested shows. There's no common sense, just an opportunity to screw somebody. BTW, arresting people for moving an object off a road at night, where it would be a deadly obstacle if hit by another car, is not common sense, no matter what their conditions is.
Dave Head
Dave Head
