“The defense can make things difficult, especially for a junior officer. It’s very frustrating,” said Bartlett.
In one case, “This person had done a U-turn on the Lions Gate Bridge to avoid the roadblock, then failed the roadside test, then blew three times the legal limit,” he said. But when it got to court a year later, “I couldn’t come up with the proper wording to explain how I formed my grounds (for believing the driver was impaired). The case got thrown out.”
.. either this happens a lot, or this was the person that Ed and I saw last year that a) almost killed us and b) we ratted out to the check stop police. We were on our way home to North Van and had just come off the Lions Gate Bridge when the minivan in front of us SLAMMED on his brakes as the road block ahead came into view. We swerved at the last possible second to avoid a collision, and watched in utter disgust as the car backed up, crossed several lanes of traffic, and zoomed off in the opposite direction. As soon as we got to the stop we told the cops what we saw, and they were *very* interested – they radio’d the info and sent someone off down the road. Looks like it was all for naught though, as the case got thrown out. And that fucking sucks.
Seriously, FUCK drunk drivers. Your right to get wasted does not trump my right to live – anyone who drinks alcohol and gets behind the wheel of a car is the lowest form of scum. They shouldn’t be allowed rights and due process; it should be a “one strike and you’re out” thing. People are whining because the province has introduced new rules for drinking and driving – it’s a breach of our RIGHTS, it’s not FAIR, I’m a self-righteous ASSHOLE who doesn’t care about anything beyond that awesome booze. FUCK you guys. I’m too disgusted with a society that encourages this kind of behavior (which in my mind is anything less than jail time/loss of vehicle and license/enormous fines upon the first offense) to really be coherent and verbose about it – people who choose to drink and get behind the wheel of a car do not deserve second chances or loopholes or forgiveness. The people they kill certainly didn’t a second chance; why should they?
FUCK drunks.
delicious juice dot com 
A+ would agree again
drunk drivers should lose their license and be forced to sell their cars. the money should be given to families who have lost bread-winners due to the selfishness of somebody who chose to incapacitate themselves before getting behind the wheel.
drunk driving is the worst crime
Drunk driving is a terrible thing to do… but… there is a reason for technical defenses and cases getting thrown out of court. The police have extraordinary powers already when it comes to drunk driving. A checkstop is a violation of rights that is permitted for the greater good. Just think about it; if the cops wanted to randomly come into your house just to make sure you aren’t breaking any laws in there, I hope you’d be righteously outraged. A checkstop is a random check to see if you’re breaking any laws when there is no reason whatsoever to expect that you are in fact breaking any laws – that’s a very serious thing and if the cops have that power they should have to exercise it by the book.
Also… the more serious and strict the sentences are for drunk driving, the more that people charged are going to hire the most brilliant lawyers who are going to push and develop the law. Impaired driving is an incredibly complex area of law because of how many cases have been fought, and the harsher sentences are, the more incentive there is to fight technical defenses.
If there was more flexibility on sentencing for impaired driving, there would be a greater incentive to plead guilty and thus avoid the chance of the case being lost on a technicality. As it stands right now there is almost no incentive in the system to plead guilty to impaired driving and every incentive to try a defense like what this person succeeded with.
I’m not trying to defend drunk drivers here, just to add some perspective – like most things, this is more complicated than it looks at first glance.
Is it really that hard for people to not break the law? If you drink, don’t drive. It can’t get much more simple than that. I’d rather live in a police state where people were stopped to make sure they weren’t driving impaired than .. y’know, get killed by a drunk. If you’re not an asshole who think they’re somehow immune to the effects of alcohol, then you should have nothing to fear from check stops.
I just hate drunks of all flavours, I guess.
I am not a fan of drunk driving in any way shape or form.
But “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to be worried about” is a *horrible* slippery slope. I don’t have a problem with roadside checks, but I do have a problem with, say, closed circuit cameras in public spaces, or being required to provide identification to an officer who has no cause to ask for it.
I have been known to break laws. I have jaywalked. I have smoked The Marijuana. I have participated in sodomy with more than one other person present. (Yes, that’s illegal in Canada.) And I’d be pretty damn pissed off if the cops came storming into my home while I was participating in said sodomy. Especially if I was also high at the time, because dude, you’re totally harshing my mellow.
But the excuse of “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear” is how people with power start being able to abuse it.
I know .. and Rational Kimli would totally agree, but she’s not here right now. I think she stepped out for lunch or slept on a pile of poo or something, because she would never get this cranky over the newspaper so clearly I have been body swapped.
For the record, I don’t want to live in a police state or have police drop in on me to make sure I’m behaving. I just .. really hate drunks, y’know?
Good to know — because I really, really like sodomy with more than 1 other person present, and I’d hate to think that now that I’ve confessed this, I have to worry about the police breaking down my door to stop me from my wicked ways. :D
A checkstop is a violation of rights that is permitted for the greater good. Just think about it; if the cops wanted to randomly come into your house just to make sure you aren’t breaking any laws in there, I hope you’d be righteously outraged.
Yes, I would be righteously outraged, becuase without at least a suspicion of causing harm to another person, there’s really no call to be invading my home. Like Donna’s example, there’s certain laws that are just stupid.
HOWEVER, I’m not going to get killed because someone is practicing sodomy in their own home behind closed blinds. I *am* going to get killed becuase some dipshit is too stupid to call a cab instead of driving. Big difference there.
As for a checkstop being called a violation of rights, I disagree. The police are simply asking how you’re doing that evening, and then if there is a suspicion of drinking (oh, I donno, whisky breath, or open vodka bottle stuffed between your knees) they would pull you over, search your vehicle, administer a sobriety test, etc. Simply funnelling you through a single lane past police isn’t what I would call an unwarranted search.
I totally agree that drunk drivers should lose their right — or rather *privilege* — to drive, forever. However, they should be tried in a court of law and not by the police. (That being said, I don’t think the comparison of road checks with coming into your house is entirely valid given that road checks occur in a public space.)
Are you talking about the dude in the white minivan who nearly hit the Delica that time? Or did you guys see another horribly obvious case of drunk driving? That was so ridiculous. And yeah, if it is the same dude, I can’t believe he got off.
I’ve found that Canadians are much, much more likely than Brits to drive after a couple of drinks. The British penalties are much more severe – a two year driving ban for your first offense, none of this 24 hour suspension nonsense – and also the crime is referred to as “drink driving” rather than “drunk driving”, which I think does make a distinction in people’s minds.
There was also a massive campaign in Britain just before I learned to drive, so my generation tends to be much more responsible than my parents’ generation.
I don’t drive in Canada because I only know how to drive on the left.
If we actually punished — I mean really punished — the ones we did catch I’d be fine with making convictions more difficult to obtain, but we don’t.
We don’t even suspend licenses for life; how harsh is that? “I sentence you to a life of bikes and buses”. I LIVE that life of my own free will and yet judges think it’s too tough for repeat offenders.
A couple years ago, a radio station I listened to started running ads for a legal firm that promised acquitals from drunk driving cases. I called up their sales department and ask that if I was a legal firm that specialized in acquitals for accused pedophiles, and would they accept my ads too, and if not, why was killing kids less offensive than fucking them? We still didn’t see eye to eye at the end of the conversation, but the ads didn’t last long.
Drunk driver kill real people. In my case, it’s less than 6 degrees of separation :
my grandfather
http://www.odmp.org/officer/9897-officer-leonard-nelson