One Step Further – Let’s Abolish DUI Laws Altogether

As soon as I finished my post on the disturbing new legal development where police officers can forcibly take your blood at a DUI checkpoint against your will (and against the Constitution), I found this article by Reason.com’s Radley Balko on the subject of DUI laws.

Do I have timing or what?

Balko’s post notes that Austin’s police chief, Art Acevedo, wants to create a new law: “driving while ability impaired.” This would allow him to arrest someone whose Blood Alcohol Content is below .08%, which current law forbids without additional evidence of impairment. It’s an idea that’s attracting supporters such as the Chairman of the Texas State Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee, John Whitmire (D-Houston).

There is only one way for this new law to work: abolish the old DUI law and do away with checkpoints altogether.

There are many sound, logical reasons for this new approach to eliminating dangerous driving, as Balko points out. Really, this approach would be a return to common sense, as the institution of DUI checkpoints is a relatively recent development.

This new law would take into account the variations in peoples’ response to alcohol. As I noted, setting an artificially low threshold ignores the fact that two drinks in two different people will have two different effects. Some folks can’t handle one drink, while experienced drinkers can safely drive after three.

Again, I must stress that I’m not advocating driving while drunk. But you know that already. Safe driving is a passion of mine, as my exemplary record behind the wheel demonstrates. Learning how to drive on a military installation as I did teaches you respect for traffic laws. On a personal note, I’ve lost far more friends to auto accidents than I care to recall, dating back to high school. So, yeah, I advocate safe, responsible driving at all times and in all places.

Balko goes on to note that DUI checkpoints take officers off the highways where they are most needed to find more impaired drivers. When you consider that they’re ineffective when compared to the money and man-hours consumed and are constitutional violations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, there’s lots of valid reasons why this approach to getting impaired drivers off the roads isn’t working.

We are smarter than this.

Police should start concentrating on reckless driving regardless of cause. I’ve seen perfectly sober folk who couldn’t drive well and nearly caused accidents due to their disregard for safety.  I once told a guy to pull over so I could get out of his car, he drove so carelessly. I walked back home and never rode with him again after that.

You have probably known a few bad drivers in your life, too. My point is that you need not be impaired in order to drive recklessly. Our police should concentrate their efforts on improving public safety by getting those reckless drivers off the road. They aren’t hard to find, we see them every day. We need to free up those officers currently confined to DUI checkpoints and put them back on the roads where they can be far more effective.

In fact, if we did away with DUI laws, we still have laws against reckless driving. Perhaps all that's needed is a refinement of existing law. However, the lawyers' lobby would start screeching that doing away with laws is dangerous and a threat to public safety, which is bullshit, especially when you realize the amount of money lawyers make with the current DUI laws. They want to guarantee their income at the expense of our freedom. They're funny like that.

The current method is like fishing with dynamite. Sure, you’ll catch a lot of fish, but it’s illegal and you end up with a lot of fish you don’t want or need. You’re doing far more harm than good.

I’ll let Mr. Balko sum it up:

Doing away with the specific charge of drunk driving sounds radical at first blush, but it would put the focus back on behavior, where it belongs. The punishable act should be violating road rules or causing an accident, not the factors that led to those offenses. Singling out alcohol impairment for extra punishment isn’t about making the roads safer. It’s about a lingering hostility toward demon rum.

And government control over you. But you already knew that, too.

You’re About to Lose Another Right – DUI Checkpoints Can Now Draw Your Blood, Even If You've Done Nothing Wrong

Just in time for the Holidays, Florida is primed to join a few other states in violating your Constitutional rights, namely the Fourth Amendment. Here’s the text:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

OK, that seems to be pretty straightforward and easy to understand. You cannot be accused of a crime unless there is reasonable suspicion that you’ve done something illegal. That evidence must be presented to a judge in order to issue an arrest warrant.

At least that’s how it used to work.

However, there’s this story (via the Drudge Report). Tampa, Florida is to begin setting up DUI roadblocks where you can’t refuse a breathalyzer test. If you do, then police can forcibly draw blood from you for an alcohol test.

Now, before you say I’m in favor of drinking and driving, let me say for the record, I’m not. Common sense should prevail, and if you’ve had a few too many, then you shouldn’t be behind the wheel.

But that’s not what this is about. This is about your rights and how your government is failing its sworn duty to protect them, and you.

Here’s the scenario: You’re driving down the road, obeying the speed limit, all your vehicles’ lights are in good working order, and you’re complying with all the laws. You’re not weaving or driving in an erratic way. In other words, you’re doing what you are expected to do, driving safely. You come upon a police checkpoint where you’re compelled to submit to a breathalyzer test with no evidence that you’ve violated the law.

You’ve just had an unconstitutional act performed on you by someone who has sworn an oath to defend your Constitutional rights.

This is legal insanity of the first order.

Now, there will be a few folks, and I’ve had more than one conversation with a few of them, who will say that driving is a privilege, not a right. However, when I cite the facts as outlined above, their argument dissolves. This is exactly the type of abuse that our Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent, namely the arbitrary and capricious use of legal force.

If you’re driving safely, even after a couple of drinks, you should not be subject to any type of police action against you, period. This logic, however, seems to have escaped the courts, even when they say that safety is their prime concern. Note the discrepancy: you’re driving safely, yet you’re confronted with a police checkpoint where you must prove your innocence despite any evidence that you’ve done anything illegal.

We’ve sat by idly and watched a legal racket be set up before our very eyes in the name of public safety. What started out with the best of intentions has become something far more onerous and deadly to our legal rights as citizens. If you’ve ever been drawn into the DUI Racket, you know what I mean. Blood Alcohol Content requirements are now set so artificially low that two drinks, hardly an impairment to anyone I know, is now sufficient cause for you to be subject to legal extortion in the form of arrest and restitution. Naturally, the lawyers’ lobby and Mothers Against Drunk Driving are all for this, since they stand to make a great deal of money in the process.

Even the founder of MADD, Candy Lightner, left the organization she founded when she saw what it had devolved into.

This madness must stop. We’re already sliding down the hill towards totalitarianism, and our own court system is complicit. Imagine yourself in this situation, being forced from your vehicle at gunpoint and having a needle forced into your arm. I’m quite certain that the first question you’ll have is, “What happened to my rights?”

And you’d be quite correct to think that you had just lost them.

Hopefully, Florida’s incoming Attorney General Pam Biondi will address this very serious problem as soon as possible. Although case law (there’s that legal beast again) will support this most illegal action, as it has in the use of checkpoints, the plain language in our Constitution forbids it.

Either we have rights or we don’t.

In this case, we clearly don’t. It's time to start correcting the fuzzy legal thinking that substitutes for the plain language of our Constitutional foundation.