Drunk driving to be largely decriminalized in Alberta in 2018

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Pretty simple: don’t blow over.

Life is tough when you drink and drive.

It's really tough if you get one of the 2000 thousand wonky breathalyzers. Or if you have a condition that makes you look stoned. Or even if you answer questions honestly.

[PepsiFree]

You can always request another breathalyzer.

I honestly don’t really worry about the very minor occurrence of police corruption, vendetta policing, or general bad-practice that has a few people wringing hands over slippery slopes. This law primarily punishes those who choose to drink and drive (by an incredibly sound margin) and costs the taxpayer less to deal with those idiots. Good riddance.

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You can always request another breathalyzer.

I honestly don’t really worry about the very minor occurrence of police corruption, vendetta policing, or general bad-practice that has a few people wringing hands over slippery slopes. This law primarily punishes those who choose to drink and drive (by an incredibly sound margin) and costs the taxpayer less to deal with those idiots. Good riddance.

So people should find it acceptable to give up due process for a method that places the onus on the accused to prove their innocence and allows the police to impose roadside sentences? All because the risk on being falsely punished is “low”?

Would you be willing to have your license taken away on the side of the road and then have to fight an uphill battle to get it back if you were innocent? All the while incurring thousands in costs you’ll never recover and possibly lose your job?

No one has argued for more lenient penalties for impaired driving, what people are against is allowing the police to impose a severe, possibly life altering penalty, when it has been shown the methods they use need judicial oversight.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You can always request another breathalyzer.

I honestly don’t really worry about the very minor occurrence of police corruption, vendetta policing, or general bad-practice that has a few people wringing hands over slippery slopes. This law primarily punishes those who choose to drink and drive (by an incredibly sound margin) and costs the taxpayer less to deal with those idiots. Good riddance.

It is pretty funny when people "don't worry about the very minor occurrence of" xyz until it happens to them. You're willing to throw other people under the bus but there is no way you'd ever be willing to take one for the team.

[underGRADFlame]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

It's really tough if you get one of the 2000 thousand wonky breathalyzers. Or if you have a condition that makes you look stoned. Or even if you answer questions honestly.

Where does this number come from?

[Poster]

I am a 0 tolerance for drinking and driving kinda guy, as in 0 drinks if you are driving. However, this doesn’t seem to protect those people at all.

I could drink pop and have an officer or machine take my rights away without due process.

If I understand this correct, it does not have my support.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by underGRADFlame

Where does this number come from?

In BC they had to take 2000 breathalyzers out of service to recalibrate them. They've not improved much since. They are notoriously faulty and inaccurate.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You can always request another breathalyzer.

I honestly don’t really worry about the very minor occurrence of police corruption, vendetta policing, or general bad-practice that has a few people wringing hands over slippery slopes. This law primarily punishes those who choose to drink and drive (by an incredibly sound margin) and costs the taxpayer less to deal with those idiots. Good riddance.

Without oversight not only is there nothing to ensure that you can request another breathalyzer, there's nothing to ensure that you're given an alert at all.

As the law is written, police can suspend your license at their own whim. There's zero protection of due process.

I'm not pro-drinking and driving. I'm a small guy with a high tolerance. I won't have one beer at the pub around the corner and drive home.

That said, I'm not pro-police suspending and giving infractions with zero due process.

[Nufy]

What should this kid have done...

https://globalnews.ca/news/3909249/c...nothing-wrong/

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Wow, I am stunned that MADD supports this approach.

MADD has evolved over the years to be anti drinking instead of just anti drunk driving. If people are too scared to drink at all it fits their position just fine.

[CaptainCrunch]

This is a bad idea, I'm all for cops being able to pull people over, make them take the tests and taking their cars away for 24 hours if they fail the tests.

I'm not for the police being the whole court system and being able to enact longer and more expensive suspensions without the oversight of the courts.

At the end of the day, this is going to create a even bigger backlog at the higher levels of the courts as people try to overturn this law.

The courts have to be there to police the police, and correct mistakes.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by Nufy

What should this kid have done...

https://globalnews.ca/news/3909249/c...nothing-wrong/

Exactly. No due process and this kid has his car towed and has to pay the fine. Why? Because the officer at the checkpoint was unfamiliar with the medical side effects of concussions.


If there's no check on enforcement then it's a free for all.

If you think issues don't happen and current rules are strictly followed walk down to provincial court ant day of the week. Police are human. That doesn't mean bad, but human. In a modern, civilized society there is due process.

[OldDutch]

Here’s a plan. Unionize the judges and lawyers and magically watch this law be reversed and the courts be massively funded.

Your move law system.

[Galakanokis]

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Sob...530/story.html

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll

So people should find it acceptable to give up due process for a method that places the onus on the accused to prove their innocence and allows the police to impose roadside sentences? All because the risk on being falsely punished is “low”?

Don't kid yourself - citizens increasingly have no problem at all giving up due process. The egregious abuses of government and judicial authority have largely faded from our living memory, and many people no longer really understand why these safeguards were set up in the first place. Or they only imagine the bad people - other people - falling afoul of authority.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll

So people should find it acceptable to give up due process for a method that places the onus on the accused to prove their innocence and allows the police to impose roadside sentences? All because the risk on being falsely punished is “low”?

Would you be willing to have your license taken away on the side of the road and then have to fight an uphill battle to get it back if you were innocent? All the while incurring thousands in costs you’ll never recover and possibly lose your job?.

I’m making no argument on what people should find acceptable, I’m just saying what I find acceptable. And yes, in a trade off for the lower burden on the court system and more drunk drivers recieving immediate punishment, I will gladly accept the minute possibility that I am A) pulled over sober and B) blow over while not having consumed a drink and C) am not given a second breathalyzer or test to verify my sobriety while recieving an unfair punishment.

Call me crazy, but yeah, i’ll happily roll the dice for the benefits.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Call me crazy, but yeah, i’ll happily roll the dice for the benefits.

Thanks for the input, Will Roper.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I’m making no argument on what people should find acceptable, I’m just saying what I find acceptable. And yes, in a trade off for the lower burden on the court system and more drunk drivers recieving immediate punishment, I will gladly accept the minute possibility that I am A) pulled over sober and B) blow over while not having consumed a drink and C) am not given a second breathalyzer or test to verify my sobriety while recieving an unfair punishment.

Call me crazy, but yeah, i’ll happily roll the dice for the benefits.

As someone who's been accused by police of something I didn't do, this attitude terrifies me. I don't drink anything if I'm driving because I can't afford to risk losing my livelihood, which would happen if I had my licence suspended. Having this happen at the discretion of a single police officer, who I know by experience are not infallible, is not acceptable to me at all.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You can always request another breathalyzer.

I honestly don’t really worry about the very minor occurrence of police corruption, vendetta policing, or general bad-practice that has a few people wringing hands over slippery slopes. This law primarily punishes those who choose to drink and drive (by an incredibly sound margin) and costs the taxpayer less to deal with those idiots. Good riddance.

The ignorance...its palatable.

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by transplant99

The ignorance...its palatable.

The "you can always request another breathalyzer comment" is so misinformed as to be ridiculous. Its a comment made to back up some point he's trying to make, and is completely incorrect, he's just making things up.

For those who are not aware of the procedure, the machine does a self-calibration check and records the reading, then you blow, and that reading is recorded, then 15 minutes or more later, they again check the calibration and you blow a second time. Both readings are recorded, a detailed printout is generated which records more than just the actual breath reading, it shows the temperature of the ampoule, time, all kinds of other things.

You don't get a third, fourth or fifth reading. The first reading to be "back validated" to your blood alcohol content has to be taken within 2 hours of having been pulled over. There is a presumption that if the test is administered within 2 hours, the reading is presumed to apply to the time you were driving. (See s. 258 CCC)

The requirements are quite strict (see sections 253 to 258 of the criminal code) in terms of what is allowed.