TheAgitator.com
D.C. Back to Zero Tolerance?
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008A few years ago, the Washington Post ran a story about Debra Bolton, a woman arrested for DUI in Washington, D.C. even though she’d had only a single glass of wine with dinner before driving, and blew just .03 on a breath test. The story generated quite a bit of attention and ridicule for D.C., and put some needed light on the folly of zero tolerance DUI laws.
It was my understanding that in response, the D.C. city council raised the standard, and passed legislation stating you had to blow at least .05 in order for a police officer to arrest you for DUI at his discretion (.08 or higher is de facto guilt).
But D.C. Police Chief Kathy Lanier said something different on a local radio show this morning. The host asked her to list some common excuses she gets from people she has pulled over in her career. She mentioned that it was common for obviously drunk drivers to say “I’ve only had two beers.” At that, the host asked, “But what if you’ve really only had one or two drinks?” Lanier responded that it’s illegal to drive in D.C. after just one drink, and that the city has a zero tolerance policy.
Is Lanier ignorant of the law in D.C.? Or did the city never actually change the law after the Bolton story?
I tend to believe that Cops are pretty ignorant of laws. That’s why they are cops. Cops are just civil servants with nice uniforms.
She’s just stating what most people know.They do not want anyone having any alcohol before driving.If they admit that it’s safe at some levels they lose cred.Look at the way they distort the stats.18,000 killed by drunk drivers is used as a selling point for more laws,yet,it has been proven that 5000 would be a truer figure.In fact your more likely to be killed by a a sober driver or have a accident at home.I’m also wary of a law were the standard is always changing.When I started to drive in OHIO the limit was .15,then .12,then .10 now .80 and some want .05.People who years ago drove home safely would now be criminals.These are laws that most drinkers have broken with no harm what so ever.
Yeah, it would be nice if they publish stats that actually show the blood alcohol level for people involved in accidents and fatalities rather than treating any level as being dangerous. It would make an interesting graph: number of accidents versus alcohol level. Whenever I hear of an accident caused by a drunk driver, the BAC is almost always up there way past .10 and usually way past .15.
Accidents versus alcohol level is only half a statistic: you’ve got to know the distribution of BAC levels in the population that didn’t have an accident to figure if it makes a difference.
Anecdote: A number of years ago my wife and I went out to dinner and shared a Scorpion Bowl (about 4 shots.) It disagreed with her so I finished most of it, and we decided she would drive home. (I don’t drink much, so I feel the impairment below the legal limit.) When we got to the car it was stuck in its parking spot due to ice, so we swapped again until the car was unstuck. I told the story and immediately heard from the chorus of DARE graduates what a dangerous move that was. Apparently the fear was that once I got behind the wheel I would forget that I was only trying to finesse the car out of ice, and might decide to head to a freeway for a demolition derby.
David,you also need to know the facts of the accident.If a person has,say, a BAC of .05 and a sober driver runs a red light and hits him it is counted as a alcohol related accident.
I’ve often wondered if, as an actuarial question, overstating the dangers of drinking and driving (Buzzed driving IS drunk driving) and the dangers of drug use is a net positive. Certainly most people ignore it and moderate their behavior reasonably. But of the others, are there more people who take it at face value or more people who believe exactly the opposite to be contrarian? I’ve certainly met plenty of both, but I haven’t come to any conclusions.
If you think the D.C. Police are anything but a dangerous joke, then you should read this: (http://www.gurapossessky.com/news/parker/documents/07-290bsacBuckeyeFirearmsFoundation.pdf)
A. Washington, D.C. Has A Significant
Crime Problem………………………………… 8
B. The MPD Has A Significant Problem
Hiring And Retaining Qualified Police
Officers…………………………………………… 11
C. The MPD Has A Significant History Of
Mismanagement ……………………………… 17
D. The District’s “911 System Is A Joke”… 22
E. The MPD Has A Significant History Of
Corruption ……………………………………… 25
F. The MPD Has Stifled Private Security
And Mismanaged The Industry’s Regulation
……………………………………………… 30
Michael, you can do it either way.
I wouldn’t call being 0% at fault in an accident when you’ve had a drink “alcohol related”, but on the other hand if it turns out that BAC is correlated (presumably negatively) with how well you check to see if somebody is running the red light against you, that can be useful information. It’s sort of like baseball — the exceptional player will catch the ball that would not have been scored an error if he couldn’t. Sometimes very good defensive driving can avoid or mitigate the accident.
But for now, yes, the partial statistic over-states it by labeling any accident anywhere near alcohol as “alcohol-related”. That’s why I want the other half: How many drivers on the road without incident, pairwise if you will, are in a condition that would be labeled “alcohol-related” if there were an accident?
My more cynical side thinks that it’s the insurance companies who really drive all these “zero tolerance” policies, even more than groups like MADD. The increase in rates that accompanies the charge (not even a conviction) of DUI would seem to support that.
David,I look at the total numbers of drivers[maybe 100 million] and amount of miles driven by all.I’d say it’s in the billions.Now,I assume every driver does something that could cause an accident at some point[cell phone,speeding,refusing to yield,ect],yet the numbers are of deaths are low.When you take a number of 5000-8000 deaths due to drinking it is even smaller.
Here’s a good writeup on the statistics used to calculate the effects of DUI.
While this writeup looks at it in the most favorable light, one could definitely make the argument that the numbers aren’t nearly as bad as what the NHTSA (and MADD) would have you believe.
I’m sure insurance companies have a lot to do with the administrative license suspensions that most states have (your licence gets yanked for being arrested for DUI regardless of your guilt). There’s no doubt that the SR-22 requirements are directly a result of insurance companies manipulating government.
Radley’s understanding is incomplete, but Lanier is still the weasel. The D.C. Council (in 2007 - speedy, they…) modified the DUI statute for court proceedings. The modifications did not change the police’s (nearly unfettered) discretion to arrest on suspicion, it ONLY changed the impact such evidence would have on subsequent court cases.
The new statute sets a presumption that <.05 is UNintoxicated, .05-.08 gets NO presumtion EITHER way but may be considered with other evidence.
Navigate to § 50-2205.02. Evidence of intoxication in the DC Code.
The police always have had unfettered discretion to arrest you if you’ve been drinking. They only need a reasonable suspicion to stop you and probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and you’re the one who committed it to arrest you.
DUI zero tolerance, Drug zero tolerance, morality/victimless crimes are all excellent examples of what happens when the law is asked to deter certain behaviors. The law is ill equipped to do so. The laws get more and more ridiculous, more and more people get arrested — have their lives ruined and eventually the cops will stop enforcing the laws when politicians tell them to.
Here is a good site for information about the absurdity of DUI laws:
Here
Prof.
In California the law seems to be zero tolerance (penalties are the same no matter what the level):
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc23152.htm
Driving Under Influence of Alcohol or Drugs
23152. (a) It is unlawful for any person who is under the influence of any alcoholic beverage or drug, or under the combined influence of any alcoholic beverage and drug, to drive a vehicle.
(b) It is unlawful for any person who has 0.08 percent or more, by weight, of alcohol in his or her blood to drive a vehicle.
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11_5/vc23536.htm
Penalty: First Conviction
23536. (a) If a person is convicted of a first violation of Section 23152, that person shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for not less than 96 hours, at least 48 hours of which shall be continuous, nor more than six months, and by a fine of not less than three hundred ninety dollars ($390), nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000).
J.A. and others. It’s two separate offenses.
The (a) count is traditional driving under the influence, the cop/persecutor needs to show that your performance was negatively impacted by your drinking. To prove the first element, the cop testifies he observed that you were weaving within the lines. To prove the second, the cop testifies that you told him you’d had a couple beers + you failed the field sobriety tests (more here, here, and here. Of course, the cops/persecutors will try to bootstrap ‘under the influence’ with your failure to pass the Breathalyzer/blood test. This offense requires some ‘bad’ driving and observation that you’re under the influence.
The (b) count is what they call ‘per se.’ This is the MADD inspired strict liability offense. This is the offense that leads to administrative license suspension. The cop/persecutor needs to prove (1) you drove and (2) your blood-alcohol was .08 or above. It used to be .15, then it was .10. MADD saw that too many people were getting off, so they keep lowering it. This offense you merely need to blow .08 or above w/o any ‘bad’ behavior.
So in California, where I live/practice, it is not zero tolerance because for the (a) count, you need some ‘bad’ behavior, for the (b) count you need .08 or above.
Prof.
I find it interesting that the number of drunk driving arrests is used as evidence of a “problem”, making necessary further reductions in the BAC threshold.
“It would make an interesting graph: number of accidents versus alcohol level.”
A more interesting graph would be a time series showing DUI revenues and BAC thresholds overlaid.
Arizona’s law is very similar to California’s described in comment #14–you can get a 0.08 BAC DUI, a 0.10 super-DUI, or a doesn’t-matter-what-your-BAC-is “driving while impaired” DUI. And the drug for the latter can be any drug–alcohol, marijuana, prescription drugs, potentially even caffeine, though I don’t think that’s been attempted by a prosecutor. “Impaired” means the arresting officer thinks you are impaired, and has accumulated whatever evidence has worked in court before to demonstrate impairment–i.e., weaving within a lane, failure to signal, slurred speech, smell of alcohol, you dropped your driver’s license while handing it to him, failed a crazy roadside “sobriety test,” etc.
If everyone in every state decided to only drink at home, we would have less problems, right? But if we did that ,what would happen to the bar/lounge club industry? The industry would get on enforcements back via legislature. Yeah ,drunk driving is bad, but a over zealous, militarized police force is worse…and getting worserer. Thanks W.