No proper cause for a search

Why is this not a thing?

Post more often!

Cher

It makes no sense to require every person to pay for the bad acts of a few. We're talking about 10-15% of drivers who drive impaired. Also, there are plenty of them driving on drugs that do not register on a breathalyzer.

You don't treat 80% of the people like they're guilty because of the 20% who are.

I live in the country where it's common on any given night to see 2-3 cars just weaving around, endangering everyone. People go to bars and drink, then get in their cars and drive home. How do they know they're not impaired?

I don't think it's "treating people like they're guilty" at all. How many times have you or people you know driven while intoxicated? How many times have you or those people been caught? That's really the point, people rarely get caught. Until something really bad happens.

Just my opinion. You're entitled to disagree.

fine them for that too.

First of all, your story about the commonality of people weaving where you live is anecdotal evidence. It does not necessarily represent the rest of the nation and is statistically invalid as a point of discussion in support of a national effort to add costs to every person's car. Costs that are unnecessary. I can say I see 2-3 seagulls a day so seagulls must be commonly seen by everyone but that is not true either. It just means I live closer to the coast than other people. Maybe you just have drunks for neighbors.

Yes, it is punishment. It is a penalty in the form of an added cost to operate a vehicle when there is no other good reason for the cost. Mandatory seat belts and airbags protect all passengers and drivers who drive. Not just 20%. Those are reasonable requirements on automobiles.

Where do we stop on this? More accidents happen while backing up than moving forward. Do we require backup cameras on all cars now to prevent the deaths from backing accidents? Speed kills. Should we put speed governors on all cars. Make people drive 55 and under?

Lastly, as soon as they're required there will be thousands of articles online on how to by-pass them, rendering the whole exercise moot.

Reliable in-situ breathalyzers in personal vehicles would be quite expensive to buy and maintain, and would require frequent certification for accuracy. They likely would require a warm-up period in extremely cold climates. Manufacturers of the device and/or the car could be held liable if they failed.

Those factors would be a very unfair cost burden for poor people and for those like me that don't drink. In our nation that is outrageously car-dependent, it would cause massive problems, IMO.

Certainly appreciate your good thoughts and intent, though.......

Why should someone that doesn't drink have to go through something like this all the time ?

1 ) Start car in the morning; blow

2) Drive to gas station; blow again

3) Stop at Bank ; blow again

4) go to Post Office; blow again

5) Stop at grocery store; blow yet again


Debbie Dingell ( House member from Michigan) proposed it a month or so ago and was ridiculed

https://www.mlive.com/news/2019/01/rep-debbie-dingell-wants-to-add-breathalyzers-to-cars-in-honor-of-abbas-family.html

I've never had a sip of alcohol in my nearly 50 years on this marble. And with my being a family chauffeur, I'd be doing this constantly throughout the day.

1) It is discriminatory against people who medically cannot blow hard enough (older, aethsma, lung disease, etc.)
2) Its my car, I'll just remove it.
3) If you block #2, then: Now selling on Amazon: "Breathalyzer Bypass" (insert how its able to defeat the mechanism here)


Oh yeah, and that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing.

fury that happened during the whole emissions thing when it came out VW programmed their cars to run different during emissions tests.
I mean, probably 90% of the population wouldn't have a problem with defeating mandatory breathalyzers. Then we'd vote out everyone involved with getting it passed. The idiot that wrote the bill, anyone that helped getting it sponsored, anyone that voted for it. Just, everyone. And this is speaking as someone that drinks maybe 3 beers a year. When I'm on vacation, and the bar is next door to the hotel.

Breathalyzer technology sucks anyway and there's no way to make it better: it relies on your lungs expelling bloodborne alcohol at a "standard rate," and it just so happens that the "standard rate" is only possessed by the guy who invented the damned thing.

If you expel at a lower rate than the standard, you can be over the limit in your blood but not show it on a breath test. If you expel at a higher rate, you can be legally okay to drive but illegal according to the breath test. The thing uses a fuel cell to measure your breath alcohol content so if you're diabetic (which means you're expelling acetone, not alcohol) and you blow into one of these things it'll claim you're completely drunk off your ass.

The ONLY thing you should ever consent to if you're suspected of driving drunk (whether you did it or not) is a blood test. Those are not infallible but they're way better than the alternative.

That would seem to solve the self-incrimination issue or search-and-seizure issue.

If your keys are in the ignition, you're "operating." (Even if the motor isn't running.)

But imagine a homeless person having a couple of drinks in their car on a cold night... they could legally end up in handcuffs, while not moving their vehicle an inch.

If the cops think you are DUI, then they can get a warrant to prove it in court.

I imagine this will come up in the state house later, but its too late for this year.

Of course you lose your DL for a couple of years. Part of getting a DL is agreeing to blow if suspected of DUI.

Seems to work fine.

I knew someone who was killed by a drunk driver so I'm pretty unsympathetic to anyone who gets behind the wheel after drinking (and yeah, once upon a time when I was young and stupid there were a few times I drove after drinking. Thank God I didn't hurt anyone, I know better now).

And I assume that is true is all states.

Florida just added an extra requirement to have a DL.

Especially around holidays. They have a judge on stand by, so if you refuse the breathalyzer it's a blood draw.

DUers: "DUI checkpoints are unconstitutional violations of the Fourth Amendment!"

Also DUers: "If you own a gun you should be required to allow law enforcement to conduct an inspection of your home to make sure you're properly storing your weapon!"