L.EvansHands

Well I really don;t have a criminal record, except for a Reckless Driving, because they could not prove impairment ENOUGH with a .07 and also with the solid evidence of my field sobriety excercise. So I dont mind airing things as long as people can gain some knowledge from what happened to me. My whole point again, is that IMO the laws are not realistic and over time are continuing to be less and less realistic as politicians ride the current popular trend in the never ending quest to secure more votes. But what happens when you can;t have a drink with dinner and drive home for fear of someone hitting you or forgetting a blinker and then all of a sudden you are tagged with DUI. Sure, arrest the club goers, they probably deserve it at 2 am drunk off their butts. Get em good. More power to you officer. I think thats a great idea. Just dont pull me over leaving Applebees at 8pm for a blinker and then decide to have me blow, me be under the legal limit, and then slap me with a DUI just because your pride or personal agenda tells you too. Yes for every 1 crap cop there is a good one or two I understand that, and I am sure they are well intentioned. But I dont want to have to roll the dice on a 50-50 gamble of what type of cop I'll get on any given day just because we tightened the law enough to give them probably cause for just about any situation the cop wants to come up with. You and I both know that probable causeis NOT hard o come up with and also is easy to modify to your needs, whether you personally do that or not. Im willing to assume you don't. But you also have to be willing to assume some do, and thatis where I think the law fails. A blinker, r beer on the breath as you leave a resturant, should not consititute probable cause but it does because the officer will report it like this: Erratic driving, the odor of alcohol eminating from the vehicle. ok this is my last post on the subject because we could do this all day everyday and get no where Go bILLs in '06 and give J.P a CHANCE!

WHOABILLS -- Hillsborough county. There is a great Bills Backr group here , 200 Bills fans go to a bar near me called O'Briens. It is really a great time when we are winning. If we are losing, it quickly gets ULTRA depressing. I suppose that the IN or ON the vehicle idea can be up to an officer to discern, and yes it probably WOULD get tossed out. However, once the arrest is made, and the charge filed, it is still going to hit the arrestee hard in the pocket book. No way around the way things are set up. The only way it gets tossed ou, remember is if ou fight the charge. If you plea , like some of our less fortunate fellow Americans who can not afford a 2500 dollar DUI attorney, then there is no way a State Attornet drops it. They only drop it if you choose to take it to trial and create more work for the already overworked prosecuter. I don't so much as hate MADD as an organization, I just hate when people just organize enough, due to legitmate hardships (that is why politicians can empathize with their situation) and create an over reaction. The politicians will knee jerk react because certainly no oneis lobbying FOR drunk driving, even alcohol companies like budweiser, who used to lobby for less stringent qualifications for a DUI, wont touch that matter with a ten foot pole. Remember the Captain urges you to drink responsibly. So the culmination of organizations such as MADD, and no one wanting to seem like a bad guy- creates this crazyyyy society where .03 is an arrestible offense. Perhaps some non drinkers would be drunk after a beer or 2 and not able to drive, but I hardly would say that the minority of NON drinkers who decide to drink one day, then drive (on a minimal amount of alcohol) make a justifable case to arrest or detain EVERYONE who makes a driving mistake and breaths above .03 Though the DC thing is extreme, it can and does happen, and in states like vermont etc, .05 is the limit and it can keep going down to where eventually there is a zero tolerance for a drink at dinner and driving home from the resturant. I don't particularly want to see that happen. Maybe some cops, troopers like yourself, make an intelligent decision, i.e. letting someone just call a ride or whatever (depending on the situation), but the cops coming striahg out of the academy are getting it hammered into their heads over and over that they are not there to interpret the law but to enforce it. And if the laws are made to be unrealistically abidable (people will always drink at resturants and a zero tolerence is unrealistically abidable especially in DC) and the officer has no real room for making a judgement call, then well we can all see where that leads. Wow...my how this thread has just taken a life of its own- :-P Lets run for office WHOA

McGee for president. My girlfriend wants to have his babies and she is a (GASP) Dolphins fan! UGH she is only useful one time a year when she buys me a ticket to satans lair, I mean Proplayer Stadium, to see the Bills play. Aren't they renaming the stadium again though? I think we keep McGee returning kicks, because if has any free time and he is mounting my GF, he might pull his back out, not to mention he would create some sort of BILLS/DOLPHIN fan halfbreed, and I couldn't stomach that. I say we play him in the slot too, sort of create our own reverse Troy Brown. Waddya say?

WHOABILLS- Well, I am one of the jaded citizens that was previously mentioned above. I blew a .07, and because I knew I was under the limit and asked to go, the cop got an attitude and ran me up anyway. I had to spend 4000 dollars in defense, a night in jail in county orange and then the prosecution dropped it to reckless driving (after seeing the field test which I passed (on tape) solidly despite the marks from the officer (that I failed 4 of 5 tests), which I pled to in order to avoid further hurt in the pocket book. I know there are bad things that happen when people drink and drive, KNOW YOUR LIMITs. No one wants to kill SuzyQ on her way to Disney, but no one wants innocent hard working citizens to get jacked by irresponsible lawmen, especially when they give the good ones a bad name. My heart is absolutly hardened against the majority of our men in blue because of !@#$s like the guy I encountered. I just fear the direction the country is taking on some freedoms in the name of safety, but then again maybe I am more liberal then some. I just would like to be able to enjoy two glasses of wine before I am considered a possible murderer in my car. You can also be considered in control of the car if you attempt to sleep it off in your car outside of a bar or whatever, at least in California (but I know from my gay azz DUI course that it is here in Florida too). See this link: http://www.duiblog.com/2005/04/18 And you can also be charged with a DUI riding a scooter, bike or lawn mower. I know, someone MIGHT ride out into traffic, but I think it has alot more to do with sticking money into state and county coffers then it does with actually having to protect citizens. Sort of like the speed traps up in STARK and WALDO florida between Jacksonville and Gainesville. ALSO YOU CAN GET A DUI WHILE CLEANING YOUR CAR. If the keys are in the ignition (listening to music), and you are touching your car (cleaning it with a rag), AND you are drunk (even in your driveway), you are in physical control of it. That is a florida supreme court statute 316.003(75),FLA.,STAT. Definitions. Give as applicable. § 316.003(75), Fla.Stat. "Vehicle" is any device in, upon, or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, except devices used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks. "Actual physical control of a vehicle" means the defendant must be physically IN or ON the vehicle and have the capability to operate the vehicle, REGARDLESS of whether [he] [she] is ACTUALLY OPERATING the vehicle at the time. You can look that up in a common law book, or if you are not that inclined or don't care, go to this website: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:5clbMY...us&ct=clnk&cd=2 CUT and PASTE it if it doesn't show up right. I am new here. Look, I don't want to come off bad or that I am FOR drunk driving. I just think that when you have organizations like MADD gripping in politicians ears, it is dangerous to personal FREEDOM. If you are drunk DON'T drive. But I think in this country, we have a tendency to ride the popular wave instead of realizing that maybe our kids would like to enjoy a beer with dinner and then be able to drive home with out getting arrested. By the way WHOA- what part of Florida are you from? I live in Tampa now but went to school at UF. GO BILLS! ALWAYS!

DUI laws are a sham. You can get one for stupid sh-- nowadays, ie. Washing your car, having the keys in so you can play music, and drinking a beer. If a cop rolls by- he can bust you for DUI, because you were "incontrol of the vehicle". IMO its MADD lobbyists (sp?) taking things to an extreme level. Some states are even lowering BAC to .05 (to be considered automatically too drunk to drive) which is ridiculous. You can drive tired, and cause more havok, but how can we test people for DWT (driving while tired). OK ok, glad I got that off my chest.

we picked up Tony Driver?

just when i think this thread is dead....its back again!

pretty cheap for a guy who rushed for 1000 yards 2 times. I mean ...pretty cheap for someone who rushed over 1,000 yeards ,2, times :-P

This thread is melting my brain

Hey, this is my first post, though I have been reading this site for about four years. For some reason I was forced into making an account to view the draft day chatter--- and for my first post: I agree completely. These draft day talking heads are so slanted I really wonder why anyone listens to them. I am happy with our picks considering we have not seen any of the rookies play a down. So we reached on 2 picks--according to the crap feeders- and then got 2 steals right after--again according to the crap feeders. So those of us who really pay attention to these talking heads...well wouldn't that make us 'crap eaters'? So for now I'll reserve judgement, if only to keep my mouth clean.