Benson arrested again...

[balta1701-A]

[Thanks mods for allowing slightly offtopic, I've said now what I have to say.]

FYI, I really don't think it bothers any of us if people take threads off topic.

[madlithuanian]

I don't find it odd in the least. It's 2008...news is instantaneous. And we now live in a society with TMZ,etc...stuff back in the day that would get hushed, gets out through odd sources all the time.

 

We live in a giant fishbowl now... So be fore-warned.

 

Anyone else think it's odd that the newspaper had this story written and posted - complete with mug shot and a statement from a police spokesman - 13 minutes BEFORE he was even released on a Saturday morning?

 

The article was posted on the Statesman web site at 8:47 and proclaimed his release in the past tense at around 9:00am.

 

I don't know what really transpired obviously, but it seems that the Police were VERY anxious to get this out to the media ASAFP.

[KiLoc69]

I wish you'd taken my advice and stopped trying to "clarify".

I have a problem with your thinking. "A DUI does not mean the driver was drunk." Legally speaking you're wrong. But you know that. You apparently are suggesting you aren't intoxicated to the degree that mental and physical faculties are too impaired at .08+ for safe driving. You're saying you know yourself better than what courts and experts have deemed. Hypothetically you could be right. Has this theory been tested on you by a research team or something? Nope. Rationalize it all you want, you're still taking a chance...saying in your mind, it's worth the risk I'll kill or maim because (in the expert opinion of someone who's recently been drinking) the risk is low. That's fine if it was only you at danger, but you do not have the right to make that choice for someone else's and their wife and three little kids (or hell, even if it's just one guy and he's a lawyer). Rail against hypocrisy if you like. I don't like it either. But the solution to the hypocrisy is to stop driving drunk, not to keep our mouths shut, which is exactly what I meant when I called you misguided. Proclaiming you'd take your chances again if it ever comes up isn't exactly endearing either, but I'm not interested in making this argument about you. Also, I'm not completely black or white on it all in the sense that I recognize it's not nearly as irresponsible to be .08 as it is .18, as do court judges typically.

 

Like Pixote apparently, I also can guarantee I've never driven with over a .08 BAL but it's moot. It might not be apples to apples because the onset only happens after you've been driving, often putting you in a bind because you don't want to pull over just anywhere and rest ('cause you might get killed like Michael Jordan's dad)...but I've driven when I was way too sleepy to have any business doing so. If the end result is me crippling some innocent for life, I don't see how it's all that different. These days, I refuse to put my own appraisal that the "risk is low" above other innocent people's safety and I sart looking for a place to rest or to properly wake up if I find myself in that situation. Hypothetically, even if one month from now I excercise bad judgement and once again drive while sleepier than I should be, it would still be no excuse for me to stop criticizing it. In othe words, I can guarantee you any hypocrisy will not stop me from saying it's wrong or criticizing someone for it.

 

When I eventually questioned myself as to why my newfound clarity about driving in an impaired state evolved slowly over time rather than getting it from the get-go, I came to the conclusion that as a community, we don't stress enough (or maybe the problem is quality, not quantity) exactly what I've expressed in the paragraphs above...and even to the extent that people know it's wrong, it happens so frequently that people are lulled into a sort of "everybody does it sometimes...it just happens" sort of mentality. So even if miamibear refuses to understand, hopefully anyone else who bothered to read all this won't say, as I did once, "although I knew better, it just didn't hit home".

 

[Thanks mods for allowing slightly offtopic, I've said now what I have to say.]

 

 

Judging by your response, I'm not sure if I was very clear on the "risk is low thing". I didn't mean i was taking a low risk that I'd injure myself or soemone else. I meant I was at a low risk of getting a DUI charge by driving after I had a beer or two since I'm 6ft 160lbs and the breathalyzer would probably register me over the limit. Because of my high tolerance for alcohol, drinking 2 beers is the equivalent of drinking two bottled waters so in no way would it hinder my driving. Why would someone who is not druk get pulled over to begin with you may be askign yourself? In Florida, almost every car has darker tints on the windshields than allowed by the law (due to the hot sun). It's one of those laws the police normally dont bother you for breaking, but on occasion they will pull you over and write you a citation. If I get pulled over for illegal tints and the officer smells beer on me, you can imagine how the rest of the story goes.

 

It doesn't have to be beer or could be wine with dinner at a restaraunt. Cough medicine, mouth wash, or a host of other things can skew these tests. The point is, these breathalyzer and blood tests are highly contested and standardized, so a DUI charge can potentially be given to anyone that has ANY alcohol in their system.