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I think every vehicle ought to be manufactured with a built-in brethalyzer that the driver must blow into in order to start the car. Voila--no more drunk driving. I would gladly trade the 10 additional seconds before each drive for the security of knowing there are no drunk drivers who might mow down me or my family.
And when those fail or give incorrect results, your solution is what?
It answers the question in the title of the thread. The answer is "YES, DUI checkpoints are constitutional". You can read the Supreme Court arguments if you are interested in learning why they rules that way.
The 9 morons in black robes are wrong more than they are right. Relying on them to tell you what is Constitutional instead of reading the document yourself is your first mistake.
The 9 morons in black robes are wrong more than they are right. Relying on them to tell you what is Constitutional instead of reading the document yourself is your first mistake.
That very document authorizes them to make these rulings, so if you have a problem with it, then you have a problem with the constitution itself.
It is not a matter of reading it, it is a matter of deciding what is "unreasonable". You think it is reasonable to allow people to operate 3000 pound vechiles dead drunk, but most people think it reasonable to NOT allow it, because it puts the lives of orher people in danger.
It answers the question in the title of the thread. The answer is "YES, DUI checkpoints are constitutional". You can read the Supreme Court arguments if you are interested in learning why they rules that way.
I don't think it answers that question. It only answers the question, "Did the Supreme Court rule that it's constitutional?" With all due respect, there is much more to the subject than this.
That very document authorizes them to make these rulings, so if you have a problem with it, then you have a problem with the constitution itself.
It is not a matter of reading it, it is a matter of deciding what is "unreasonable". You think it is reasonable to allow people to operate 3000 pound vechiles dead drunk, but most people think it reasonable to NOT allow it, because it puts the lives of orher people in danger.
Uh, lol seriously?
Go ahead and post what clause of the Constitution declares that SCOTUS is final arbiter of the Constitution.
That process is known as judicial review, and came to be in a CASE, Marbury v Madison, not the Constitution.
Also, go ahead and post any comment of mine where I ever said it is reasonable to allow people to drive drunk.
You are so far off base it's difficult to tell whether your post is nothing more than trolling or if you actually are that misinformed.
I think every vehicle ought to be manufactured with a built-in brethalyzer that the driver must blow into in order to start the car. Voila--no more drunk driving. I would gladly trade the 10 additional seconds before each drive for the security of knowing there are no drunk drivers who might mow down me or my family.
Let's see. 6 out of every 100,000 people in Brown County are killed every year as a result of drunk driving... And there aren't even 100,000 people in our county! There's less than half that: 37,674. So let's instead say 3 people are killed by drunk driving every year in Brown County.
So one could reasonably say Early accounts for about a fourth (3/12 = .25) of the drunk driving related fatalities in our county every year. That means we have a death on average about every 4 years.
Now, let's look at your idea.
10 seconds. For maybe half of the people in my small town (2,769/2 = 1384). That's 13,840 seconds. 230 minutes, almost 4 hours for all the drivers in town put together. Say they're driving at an average of twice a day (once into town, and once back), so this doubles our figure to 8 hours (480 minutes) a day.
2,920 hours a year would be spent by the city of Early on this idea. Every four years, we would spend 11,680 additional hours trying to start our cars, collectively. That's 486 days. Well over a year.
So basically, it'd be like one citizen losing over a year of their life every four years; and that's not to mention time wasted on any malfunctions or false readings. And this is a very conservative estimate, because I'm sure more than half of our population is driving!
Roads are publicly-owned property. Constitutionally, the police are definitely allowed to visually check for evidence of lawbreaking. They can do this by following you and watching how how you drive, or by standing in one place and waiting for you to come to them. In my state, the police can not detain you for any significant length of time without probable cause; usually this means that as you pull up to the checkpoint, they look at your license as you hold it out, look at your eyes, look for obvious plain-sight contraband, listen to your speech, and sniff the air wafting out of the open window. They cannot do any "searching" beyond that, and the "stops" usually only last a few seconds.
The police only have the authority given to them by either the majority of the people (voter referendum) or by the representatives elected by the majority of the people. Checkpoint authorities are usually directly written into law (they are in my home state). So if you want to remove the police's authority, all you have to do is get all your like-minded friends together and get laws passed making checkpoints illegal. You DO have enough friends who agree that allowing people to drive drunk is acceptable, don't you?
If you want to avoid all checkpoints stay off public roads. You can drive as drunk as you want as long as you stay on your own private property. If you choose to drive on public roads with your 3000-lb killing machine, then the police does have both the authority and the obligation to ensure you aren't endangering the public safety.
And my vote will continue to give them that authority.
Last edited by An Einnseanair; 05-26-2013 at 11:21 AM..
This story is true. On highway 17 in SC during a biker week there was a sign saying .HIGHWAY PATROL CHECKPOINT 1 MILE AHEAD...When the people then quickly got off of the expressway at the next exit 1/4 mile ahead they were greeted with about 20 cops cars doing a "traffic check"......I wonder who put up the warning sign....lol
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