DUI BLOG

What do you do when literally millions of American citizens admit to violating a law on a regular basis — say, at least once a month?  How do you catch that many?  How do you build enough jails?  Or is it time to maybe take a second look at that law?   

 Study: 9% of Us Admit to Drunk Driving

U.S.A. Today  -  Despite nearly 30 years of media campaigns detailing the dangers of drunken driving, almost one in 11 people admit to driving when they thought they were legally intoxicated, according to a survey released today by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Of 2,509 adults surveyed, 9% said they had driven within the previous 30 days when they believed their blood-alcohol content was .08% or above, the legal threshold for drunken driving in all states and Washington, D.C. The AAA Foundation is a non-profit research and education group founded by AAA auto club in 1947.

The results resemble those of an unrelated, larger study released last week by the federal government. The Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration’s survey of 127,000 adults found that 15% of drivers 18 and older said they had driven under the influence of alcohol at least once in the past year.

“It’s frightening,” says Aaron White, adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center who studies drunken driving among young people. “If you’ve got 10% of the people saying I drove when I was over the legal limit, you’ve probably got another chunk of people that would say I drank and drove but I wasn’t over the limit.”

White and his colleagues just completed a study of 5,000 recent high school graduates; they found 10% of the grads had drunk and driven within two weeks of being questioned…

Think about that.  Millions of people in the U.S. are driving with .08% blood-alcohol on a fairly regular basis – and that’s just counting the ones who admit it.

Maybe it’s time to recognize certain realities.  Rather than dismantling the Constitution and destroying the lives of countless citizens who statistically pose little danger, perhaps we should take a closer look at how the law addresses the problem.  Such as recognizing that a .08% blood-alcohol  level is an arbitrary figure, failing to recognize individual tolerance to alcohol.  The original level, as recommended years ago by the American Medical Association, was .15%.  See my post, DUI, MADD and the New Prohibition.  

Such as focusing instead on the small percentage of drivers who pose the greatest risk of harming others. 

The simple fact is that a small percentage of drivers pose the largest risk – those who abuse alcohol.  As any experienced DUI attorney will tell you, the risk is not from the vast majority of drivers who are over an arbitrary .08% level; it is from the chronic alcoholic who has a .24% BAC.  See my previous post, Time for a Change. 

So what was MADD’s reaction to the newly-released statistics?  From the same U.S.A. Today article:

…The most effective way to combat that attitude is with mandatory ignition interlocks for anyone convicted of drunken driving, says Heidi Castle, vice president of communications for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “People continue to drive drunk because they can, and ignition interlocks stop that,” she says.
 

A typically naive and simplistic approach to a complex problem.  See my guest editorial in Business Week:  MADD Announces End to Drunk Driving: A Reply. 

I’ve posted in the past about the insanity of extending the reach of drunk driving laws in MADD’s attempted return to the glory days of Prohibition.  See, for example, Felony Bicycle DUI, DUI on a Scooter, DUI on a Foot-High Toy Bike, DUI in a Wheelchair? and DUI on a Horse?.

Where are we going with all of this?  Take a look at a fascinating semi-documentary on YouTube created by a gentleman who was arrested for drunk driving in Columbus, Ohio…for walking his bicycle.

That’s right.  Jeff Brown was walking his bicycle — across his own front yard — when he was stopped by a police officer.  The cop began to cite him for not having a headlight on the bike, then said, “”I smell the presence of alcohol on your breath”.  Jeff was stunned — and refused to take a breath test.  Result: convicted of drunk driving — with four days in jail, a 6-month driver’s license suspension and a criminal record.

So Jeff decided to appeal…and started looking into why the Ohio Legislature in 2004 had changed the drunk driving laws from driving motor vehicles to include operating such “vehicles” as golf carts, lawn mowers, farm tractors and bicycles – and from driving on public roads to include driving on your own private property.  He found the reasons for the new laws were based on supposed fatality figures from MADD and the federal government….figures which are, to say the least, deceptive.  Jeff’s film does an exceptional job of analyzing the fraudulent manipulation of these “statistics”. 

For further information concerning the continued use of fraudulent statistics to justify the unfair DUI laws, Draconian penalties and constitutional violations, see my earlier posts:  A Closer Look at DUI Fatality Statistics, Are DUI Roadblocks Effective? and Lies, Damned Lies and MADD Statistics.

(Thanks to David Baker)

For the past year now, MADD has trumpeted its latest solution to the drunk driving problem.  After 13 years of essentially unchanged DUI-related fatality statistics (they have actually increased), MADD is now promising in its recent solicitations for money (average $52 million a year) that their latest weapon will “eliminate drunk driving once and for all”.  And in recent press releases, MADD’s national president is promising that it will “literally wipe out drunk driving in the United States”.

Pretty grandiose claims.  So what is this new miracle weapon?  The ignition interlock device, or “IID”. 

Problem #1: They don’t work.  See my guest editorial in Business Week, MADD Announces an End to Drunk Driving: A Reply. They are, however, very profitable (see my earlier post Ignition Interlock Devices: Dangerous but Profitable).  If you review MADD’s Annual Report, you will find a list of their top contributors – those ”Platinum Corporate Donors” who have paid MADD at least $100,000.  There are six:  Dial America Marketing, Nationwide Mutual Insurance, Nissan North America, Daimler Chrysler Corporation, Car Max Foundation and General Motors Corporation (makers of Saab).  Yes, three car manufacturers…and a telemarketer heavily used by MADD.

Problem #2: What about drivers who haven’t been arrested before?  How do you “literally wipe out drunk driving” by installing IIDs only in cars operated by drivers who have already been convicted?  Most drivers arrested for DUI are first offenders.

MADD understands this, and is pushing further — to have all vehicles mandatorily equipped with IIDs.  (Now you understand why the car manufacturers are investing heavily in MADD.)

New Tech Push Against Drunk Driving

MADD seeks spread of ignition interlocks that

prevent driving with high blood alcohol levels

CBS News. You have a few drinks, climb behind the wheel of your car, turn the key and — nothing. The engine doesn’t turn over, the car doesn’t move.

If Mothers Against Drunk Driving has its way, a device that checks a driver’s alcohol levels will be mandatory in cars owned by anyone ever convicted of drunk driving, and, eventually, every automobile…(Emphasis added.)

There are nearly 1.5 million drunken driving arrests last year, but only 100,000 ignition interlocks are currently in use, so even tagging first offenders isn’t really enough, says MADD…

“There are going to be different types of technology, such as trans-dermal detection that will have sensors to detect the blood alcohol level of an individual before he starts the car, so it doesn’t allow the car to start,” said (MADD President Glynn) Birch.

Another system has a Breathalyzer tube that the driver must blow into before starting the car, The (New York) Times reports. A third detects that a car is weaving down the road, and possible driven by an impaired driver.

“Biometric detection or identification will work like a thumbprint to identify and also give us an idea of who the driver is,” Birch said.

Those systems might eventually test all drivers, whether or not they have ever been convicted of drunken driving…

And as I’ve mentioned in past posts, automakers Nissan (a MADD “Platinum Donor”) and Saab (owned by “Platinum Donor” General Motors) are the two pioneers, having already produced working IID technology for their future cars…once MADD has succeeded in getting the needed legislation mandating an IID in your car.

To more clearly understand the nightmare of driving with an IID-controlled vehicle, see this Japanese TV news broadcast on YouTube (and imagine all that can go wrong).  Now also consider the $1500 or so added to the car’s sticker price, along with the periodic required calibration, maintenance and repairs.

Just the most recent example of the hypocrisy of MADD’s “War on Drunk Driving”….

Texas Lawmaker Who Created $3000 DUI Fine Gets a DUI

Austin, TX.  May 2 — A Texas state lawmaker instrumental in the passage of legislation increasing penalties on drunk drivers was himself arrested late Wednesday for driving while intoxicated (DUI). Texas State House Transportation Chairman Mike Krusee (R-Round Rock) now faces the special $3000 “driver responsibility fee” that he rushed into law in June 2003…

(Thanks to Andre Campos.)

As I discussed in a recent post, the fatalities statistics used by MADD and government agencies to justify DUI checkpoints are flawed. In fact, the statistics can be viewed as indicating quite the opposite.

Well, all right, so checkpoints may not reduce fatalities — but, according to MADD, they certainly result in more DUI arrests.

Wrong again. The simple fact is that checkpoints are largely wastes of police resources and taxpayer money — not to mention unjustified invasions of privacy. In fact, in the United States Supreme Court decision (Michigan v. Sitz) upholding their constitutionality, a dissenting justice pointed out the “the findings of the trial court, based on an extensive record and affirmed by the Michigan Court of Appeals, indicate that the net effect of sobriety checkpoints on traffic safety is infinitesimal and possibly negative”. (Emphasis added)

This is confirmed by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration studies, which conclude that “the number of DWI arrests made by the roving patrol program was nearly three times the average number of DWI arrests made by the checkpoint programs”.

Then why do we have DUI roadblocks? Consider the following news story:

PENNDOT GRANTS TOTALLING $1 MILLION FUND SOBRIETY CHECKPOINTS STATEWIDE

Chester County officials said recent recommendations from the national headquarters of Mothers Against Drunk Driving have been implemented by area police departments for years. Among the recommendations are an increased focus on prevention tactics such as sobriety checkpoints.

“We work with MADD and will continue to work with them to reduce the incidents of drunken driving in Pennsylvania,” (DOT spokesperson Jenny) Robinson said….

“I’ve read that police are less than enthusiastic about DUI checkpoints because they don’t make as many arrests,” (MADD official Bryce) Templeton said….

Richard Harkness, superintendent of the Tredyffrin Police Department, said checkpoints keep drivers aware that police are on the lookout for drunken drivers. He said there usually aren’t many DUI arrests at checkpoints, but they help educate the public.

“There should be as many DUI roadblocks as economically feasible,” Harkness said.

So…Roadblocks are invasive, don’t reduce fatalities and don’t produce more arrests — but we should have lots more of them. Why? To educate us.

The latest weapon in MADD’s “War on Drunk Driving”:

Senate Measure Would Ban Lawyers

from DUI Advertising

Nashville, TN.  AP, April 22 – Defense attorneys would be banned from advertising their expertise with drunken driving cases under a bill advancing in the Senate.

Sen. Rosalind Kurita, a Clarksville Democrat, successfully added the provision to a bill that would create an online registry of repeat DUI offenders in Tennessee.

Kurita says officials have a hard enough time convicting drunken drivers without lawyers advertising their expertise in the field and offering discounts to DUI defendants…

In another article appearing hours later, Senator Kurita explained her reasoning:  “Kurita said she pushed for the amendment because she was tired of suspected DUI offenders not being convicted.”

Imagine that:  A citizen accused of a crime who is not convicted.  Intolerable!  There oughta be a law against that.

Another rational solution to the drunk driving problem…

(Thanks to David O’Shea.)

I’ve written repeatedly in the past about the inaccuracy and unreliability of the various breath machines used to estimate blood alcohol concentrations.  See, for example, How Breathalyzers Work (and Why They Don’t), Why Breathalyzers Don’t Measure Alcohol and Breathalyzer Inaccuracy: Testing During the Absorptive State.  I’ve also pointed out how our laws now ignore scientific truth and presume that the blood-alcohol level at the time of testing was the same as when driving, say, three hours earlier.  See How to Overcome Scientific Facts: Pass a Law.  And I’ve written about how our laws now presume guilt based upon a reading over .08% from one of these machines — how these devices have become judge, jury and executioner.  See Whatever happened to the Presumption of Innocence?.

Well, at least a citizen accused of drunk driving can call his own expert from the local university to testify as to alcohol metabolism and the probable true levels of alcohol in the accused, right? 

That may now be disappearing, too….

Supreme Court Strikes Blow

to ‘Two-Beer Defence’

Toronto, April 17 – The Supreme Court of Canada dealt a blow Thursday to the so-called “two-beer defence” – used by individuals accused of impaired driving – in which defence toxicology experts use their own measurements to try to refute a breathalyzer reading taken by police.

A 7-2 majority said Thursday that allowing defence experts to estimate the amount of alcohol an accused person had in his or her system when arrested is an unreliable exercise that depends on too many variables.

“To admit such a defence would obviously fly in the face,” of Parliament’s desire to bring drinking and driving under control, Madam Justice Louise Charron said, writing on behalf of three other majority judges…

In a testy rebuke to the majority, Madam Justice Marie Deschamps said: “I find it highly troubling and offensive for a court to impeach an expert’s credibility by dismissing post-offence testing, without an indication that the testing conditions were inadequate, on the basis that it does not adequately replicate the conditions at the time of interception.

“Testing conditions are in the domain of experts, not of the courts,” she said, writing on behalf of Mr. Justice Ian Binnie. “Courts need evidence in order to question the weight of expert testimony…”

Defence toxicologists typically administer specific amounts of alcohol to the subject and measure the rate at which their body absorbs the alcohol. Their evidence ultimately covers a range of possible blood alcohol concentrations, taking into account the amount of alcohol consumed, the pattern of drinking, and the accused’s age, height, weight and gender…

  
Amazing.   Let me repeat the reasoning of the Court:

“To admit such a defence would obviously fly in the face,” of Parliament’s desire to bring drinking and driving under control, Madam Justice Louise Charron said, writing on behalf of three other majority judges…

In other words, the defendant is not permitted to question the Breathlayzer results — because it interferes with efforts to combat drunk driving.  Think about that.

In view of past decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court, and the political influence of MADD, how long do you think it will be before we follow the Canadians?

I’ve posted repeatedly in the past about the dangers of MADD’s so-called “DUI SuperCop” awards, encouraging police to make greater numbers of arrests — legal or otherwise.  See, e.g., How to be a DUI Super Cop,  Supercops..and Supercons and Another DUI SuperCop.  In yesterday’s news, the latest example: 

Cop with Most DUI Arrests Charged with

Misconduct, Other Felonies

Chicago, IL.  April 15 - A Chicago cop once honored for arresting more drunk drivers than any other Illinois officer faces felony charges for allegedly filing a bogus police report on one of his arrests.

John Haleas, 37, is charged with four counts of official misconduct, two counts of obstruction of justice, and four counts of perjury in a grand jury indictment dated
April 9.

Haleas was honored three times by the Schaumburg-based Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists as the police officer with the most DUI busts in Illinois. But last October, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office dropped about 50 DUI cases in which Haleas had been the arresting officer — and said as many as 500 cases could be in jeopardy…

According to the indictment, Haleas falsely reported that (the arrestee) failed a field sobriety test. Haleas allegedly wrote false traffic citations, the indictment states, and lied about (him) taking the “one leg stand” test, the “walk and turn” test, and the finger-to-nose test. In fact, Haleas “did not administer any field sobriety tests,” the indictment states.

I wonder how many of those record-breaking arrests by this DUI “SuperCop” were also based upon false evidence?  And how many other cops, hungry for the promotions that these awards bring, are also taking shortcuts?

For many years now, MADD has focused much of its considerable manpower (over 600 chapters), resources (revenues of over $51 million a year) and political influence on the proliferation of DUI roadblocks (or, to use the politically correct phrase, “sobriety checkpoints”). To justify this invasion of our privacy, we have been repeatedly assured that “checkpoints” are extremely effective in reducing alcohol-related traffic fatalities — and these assurances have been accompanied by statistics. Let’s take a closer look at these “statistics”….

According to MADD’s own website, 40 states have checkpoints and 10 do not. Well, it would be interesting to compare the states with the highest percentage of alcohol-related fatalities with the list of states not using checkpoints: If MADD is correct, the states with the highest fatality rates will be the no-roadblock states. Fortunately, another section of MADD’s website provides such statistics for each of the states. The 5 states with the highest alcohol-related fatality rates:

Hawaii
Nevada
North Dakota
Rhode Island
South Carolina

According to MADD, all 5 states should be non-checkpoint states. In fact, however, 4 of these states use checkpoints; only Rhode Island does not. Well, what about the 5 states with the lowest fatality percentages? They are:

Georgia
Kentucky
Indiana
Iowa
New York

If MADD is correct about the effectiveness of checkpoints, these should all be checkpoint states. But as with the previous list, only 4 of the states permit the use of sobriety checkpoints; Iowa does not. As with the previous list, the percentage is what one would expect from pure random incidence: 20% of the states (10 of 50) do not have checkpoints — and 20% of the states on each list (1 of 5) do not use checkpoints. There appears to be no correlation between fatality rates and the use of checkpoints.

Let’s take a look at another set of statistics: the effect of the proliferation of checkpoints on the national rate of alcohol-related fatalities. If checkpoints are effective, we would expect to find that alcohol-related fatalities will have declined since their widespread acceptance in recent years .

Again, the statistics do not support this. To use MADD’s own numbers: Since 1982, the number of fatalities nationwide from alcohol-related crashes has declined every year — until about 1993, when it dropped to 17,908. Perhaps coincidentally, this was the year after the United States Supreme Court ruled that sobriety checkpoints were not unconstitutional. In the 10 years since then, sobriety checkpoints have gained widespead acceptance — but the number of fatalities have levelled off, vacilating between 17,908 and 17,013. Far from supporting MADD’s position, one could even argue that this proves sobriety checkpoints have actually halted the steady decline in alcohol-related deaths. This would probably be incorrect — but indicative of how statistics can be used to serve a desired objective.

It is an unfortunate fact that law and politics repeatedly trump science when it comes to prosecuting citizens accused of drunk driving…..  

In People v. Bransford, to cite one notable example, the California Supreme Court was confronted with a defendant who was challenging his DUI conviction on the grounds that he was not permitted to offer scientific evidence to the jury. Specifically, he was not permitted to offer the testimony of recognized experts that the breath machine’s computer was programmed to assume that there were 2100 parts of alcohol in his blood for every 1 part it measured in his breath.

He was also prevented by the trial judge from offering further evidence that this 2100:1 ratio was only an average — and that the actual ratio varied widely from person to person, and within one person from moment to moment. If, for example, a suspect’s ratio had been 1300:1 at the time he blew a .10% on the machine, his true blood-alcohol would have actually been .06% — that is, he would have been innocent.

The Supreme Court of California affirmed the conviction, however, ruling that such scientific facts are irrelevant: the law was written in a way that concerned the amount of alcohol in the blood ”as measured on the breath”. In a display of either twisted logic or ignorance of the scientific facts involved, the Court simply said that the crime consisted of the amount of alcohol in the blood — but only as measured on the breath. In other words, although the crime is having .08% alcohol in the blood, you can’t offer evidence about the amount of alcohol actually in the blood!

An amazing decision. More interesting, perhaps, is the language in the opinion — an opinion which gives us a window into the justices’ minds. In what must have been a complete failure to appreciate the significance of what they were writing, the Court justified its ruling in a rather frank — and incredible — admission of its hidden agenda:

It will increase the likelihood of convicting such a driver, because the prosecution need not prove actual impairment…Adjudication of such criminal charges will also require fewer legal resources, because fewer legal issues will arise. And individuals prosecuted under such a statute will be less likely to contest the charges.  People v. Bransford, 8 Cal.4th 894 (1994).

In other words, preventing an accused from defending himself with scientific truth serves justice by making it easier to get convictions!

Are all judges oblivious to the truth? Not entirely. One judge, Justice Joyce Kennard, dissented from the majority opinion. Recognizing the truth, she wrote in a separate opinion:

The majority…has on its own created the new crime of driving with alcohol in one’s breath.