Topic: RIDE (Roadside Checkpoints) - Share, or Keep Quiet?

[sailor723]

The morning show on the radio station I listen to was just talking about police in Winnipeg (I think it was Winnipeg), are threatening to publish names of people charged with drinking and driving this holiday season.  Maybe public shame will work...

Our paper has been doing that for years. (at least those convicted) It's not jusr DUI's but all proceedings in the local provincial court that are listed in a daily section called "In The Courts".

Not sure of the ethics of publicizing those not convicted in a court.

[Loudpedal]

The morning show on the radio station I listen to was just talking about police in Winnipeg (I think it was Winnipeg), are threatening to publish names of people charged with drinking and driving this holiday season.  Maybe public shame will work...

Our paper has been doing that for years. (at least those convicted) It's not jusr DUI's but all proceedings in the local provincial court that are listed in a daily section called "In The Courts".

Not sure of the ethics of publicizing those not convicted in a court.

Interesting.   I wonder if the intent is to use it as some type of prevention tool, or simply to sell more papers?

[Jaeger]

Driver so drunk he didn't realize his car was on fire.  Check out the vid.  Unreal.

http://ca.autoblog.com/2011/12/30/alleged-drunk-driver-so-intoxicated-he-didnt-realize-his-car-wa/#continued

Jaeger

[tenpenny]

The morning show on the radio station I listen to was just talking about police in Winnipeg (I think it was Winnipeg), are threatening to publish names of people charged with drinking and driving this holiday season.  Maybe public shame will work...

Our paper has been doing that for years. (at least those convicted) It's not jusr DUI's but all proceedings in the local provincial court that are listed in a daily section called "In The Courts".

Not sure of the ethics of publicizing those not convicted in a court.

Most court proceedings are open to the public, so there's no reason that anyone charged in open court should not be public knowledge.

[JohnM]

I've got not sympathy at all for drinking drivers.  It's a cultural issue which we have to get on top of.  Alcoholism is an absolute scourge and to encourage the impaired to beat the system put in place to keep them off the road is beyond irresponsible.  If one of these pre-warned drunks kills someone, the tweeter gets an assist on the death.

In jurisdictions where they have made all out efforts to get drunks off the roads (drunks are the last people who are able to judge what their level of competence is) any reading above the noise level transports you from car to jail for 7 days and you ride your bike for a year.

It works.

1 beer an hour for 6 hours means you have a 6 pack in an evening and certainly I would be very drunk at that point.  But I can't handle alcohol.  However, that doesn't mean someone who can is any less impaired than I would be.  They just don't show it and probably don't know it.  There are a lot of drinkers in my area and believe me, brain function declines with intake even if people look and talk almost normally.  These people almost always figure they are OK to drive and the culture is such that nobody calls them on it.  It would be anti-social.

A guy I know used to play hockey with would sit out in the parking lot before the game and drink a mickie (yes, the full 12 oz).  Generally he was a great player and you would never know he had anything to drink but he occasionally made huge mistakes and mental lapses like his brain turned off for several seconds.  Over time, you could see a similar pattern in his speech but you had to look for it.  Most of the time this guy would appear fine behind the wheel but most of the time isn't good enough for drivers.

The BC case which is being fought now in the courts as too restrictive pits the rights of drinking drivers against the general public.  If the only people being killed were drunks, this might be a debatable issue like motorcycle helmets but drunks kill and maim a lot of innocent people.  In BC, the figures are (I think) a 40% reduction in drunk driving deaths.  Their program appears work.

Cheers,
John M.

[safristi]

quie the Rant John................but it is the alcohol level that determines
 the "DRUNKNESS"...........how much alcohol is in the bloodstream...at the time of driving......................if someone has two glasses of wine during a relaxed dinner...and blows UNDER.................then leave them alone...........6pack over 6 hours as you mentioned.....an anorexic 90 pounder BLOTTO!!!!.....a 180LB person after 6 hours NOT DRUNK..............the BODY metabolises alcohol Rapidly....Liver kidney lungs....about an OUNCE of PURE ALCOHOL per hour.....capice.....e.g
 a 5 ounce glass of 10% wine  contains 15ml of Alcohol...metabolised in 30 minutes...........DO THE MATH on IMBIBITIONS to your hearts content............

 Prohibition was a BUST.but driving DRUNK is BUSTIER...get the alcoholics (repeat offenders_ ) OFF THE ROAD...on that we agree...but leave social drinkers ALONE eh!!!!  shouldn't be Hard to identify those repeat DRUNKARDS   just adopt a long gun registry type boondoggle fer 2 BILLION......and smell yer workmates breath at coffee!!!! BREAKS..............


   

[blur911]

Driver so drunk he didn't realize his car was on fire.  Check out the vid.  Unreal.

http://ca.autoblog.com/2011/12/30/alleged-drunk-driver-so-intoxicated-he-didnt-realize-his-car-wa/#continued

Jaeger

I participated in a similar episode once, didn't go up in flames, but still didn't turn out very well.
I was a teenager driving from one friends house to another on a Friday night in Autumn, as I was passing the local bar, which was in a mostly rural area, I came upon a truck which had gone out the driveway, across the road and was nose-first in the ditch.  I stopped and went over to discover the driver  drunk and passed out, his foot on the throttle and the exhaust glowing orange right up to the mufflers. Looked like something would ignite soon, either the truck or the shrubbery under it.
I shut it off and pulled the keys out, and stupidly tossed them in his glove compartment for when he sobered up the next morning.  I thought he was now safe enough and couldn't get his truck back on the road even if he found his keys. (yeah I know, not the brightest move, but I was seventeenish)

So, I continue on to my friends house and get to tell an interesting story. Then my friend's older brother arrives a little later and tells the story of pulling his friend out of the ditch with his 4x4 , couldn't find the keys but he had a spare set in the glove compartment so off he went.  
We give him some hell for pulling someone who is fall-down drunk out of the ditch, but such was the culture back then and there.

Soon after another of my friend's brothers arrives, he's soaking wet and freezing.  He has a great story of being out at the harbour when some drunk guy in a truck drives out and right off the ferry slip into 30 feet of water.  He quickly jumps in to pull the guy out, has to punch him out as he's fighting him saying he wants to die, but nonetheless saves the guys butt at the risk of his own.
He was a just a little more vocal in giving hell to his brother for pulling the guy out of the ditch.