I just don’t understand drinking and driving

Next subject your postings of one story after another of dead drunk drivers had little to do with any disagreements on this thread.

The risk of low level BAC drivers and the further steps needed to address if any the DUI problem had been the debate and I had yet to see one posting that challenge the laws concerning dead drunk drivers that would suggest a need or a point to the posting of such stories.

Sorry no matter how many stories you post concerning two to three times plus over the legal limit drivers accidents it had little or nothing to do with if we need to go after low level BAC drivers in a more aggressive manner or increase their punishments.

This is a story that is likely to warm Firefly heart.


http://getmadd.com/DontDrinkatHome.htm


Don't Drink at Home--One Man's Experience


Some background and facts:
Keith Emerich, 44, the criminal (or victim depending on your politics) was arrested 23 years ago for DUI.
He has had no drug or alcohol related arrests or police encounters in these past 23 years.
His driving record is good.
He is steadily employed and his employer has never caught him drinking or smelling of alcohol on the job.
He claims to only drink at home except for occasionally having a few beers at a bar.
He went to the ER because of an irregular heartbeat.
He told the ER doctor that he drinks 6, sometimes 10 beers a day.
If he drinks 6 beers over a 4 hour period, his BAC would be under the current .08 definition of a drunk driver in PA.
The doctor recorded no evidence of him being drunk, no evidence that he had even been drinking when he was examined.
The doctor neither offered or recommended alcohol counseling for his drinking.
The doctor told him that drinking could be the cause of the irregular heartbeat.
In response to the doctor's diagnosis, Emerich now claims to only drink on weekends.
The doctor did not tell Emerich that he considered him an unsafe driver and was reporting him to the state.
The doctor reported Emerich's "confession" and the state revoked his driver's license indefinitely without a hearing.
According to the state, driving is a privilege, so the state feels it has the right to revoke that privilege at any time.
Emerich requested a hearing to get his license back.
At the hearing, no evidence was presented to contradict Emerich's statements about his old or new drinking habits.
Emerich was not allowed to confront his accuser, who remains anonymous.
No tests or evidence of unsafe driving were submitted.
Emerich refused alcohol counseling and therapy before the hearing, claiming it is not the state's business what he does at home.
The judge labeled him an alcoholic and therefore an unsafe driver. He also, with no evidence, said he lied about his drinking habits.
He ruled that Emerich could drive only with an ignition interlock on his car, installed & maintained at his expense.
The interlock will allow the car to be driven only if the driver's BAC level is below .025, about 1/3 the legal limit.
The interlock can remain on his car indefinitely, with no provision for reevaluating its necessity.

Contributions for this important appeal can be sent to Keith Emerich, 410 Chestnut Street, Lebanon, PA 17042

"Court upholds suspension of beer drinker's license"

MARTHA RAFFAELE: Associated Press, Aug 17, 2004

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A judge ruled the state can suspend the driver's license of a man who told his doctor he drank a six-pack of beer a day, but also ruled he can obtain restricted driving privileges if he uses an ignition-interlock device in his car.
Keith Emerich said Tuesday he was "kind of stunned" by the ignition-interlock order, but had not decided whether he would appeal the Lebanon County judge's ruling. Emerich, 44, said his legal battle to reclaim his license has left him "just about tapped out" financially.

"I'm being treated like a criminal. The only crime I committed was getting sick and telling the doctor the truth," he said.

Emerich's lawyer said the ruling doesn't answer the question of how Emerich can ultimately prove to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation that he can drive safely.

"This is going to cost him $30 a month" to rent the ignition-interlock device, said attorney Horace Ehrgood. "I don't know how it solves the issue of his getting his license back until he convinces PennDOT that he's capable of driving."

Ignition-interlock devices, installed in the cars of repeat DUI offenders, force drivers to blow into a tube so their blood alcohol content can be measured. In Pennsylvania, if the driver's BAC is above .025 percent the car won't start; the legal limit is 0.08 percent.

The ruling by Judge Bradford H. Charles was issued Friday. Both sides said they received it late Monday.

Emerich, who lives in Lebanon, about 30 miles east of Harrisburg, received a notice from the department in April that his license was being recalled effective May 6 for medical reasons related to substance abuse.

He disclosed his drinking habit in February to doctors treating him at a hospital for an irregular heartbeat. A state law dating back to the 1960s requires doctors to report any physical or mental impairments in patients that could compromise their ability to drive safely.

Emerich has said he doesn't drive drunk. He contended in a petition to get his license back that he has since restricted his beer-drinking to weekends and that he has a mostly clean driving record, aside from a drunken-driving conviction when he was 21.

But Charles' ruling noted that while Emerich told his doctors that he only drinks beer at home, he testified during a July 29 hearing that he also drank in bars and admitted to driving after having "a few beers." Emerich also refused a doctor's request to seek alcoholism counseling or therapy, Charles said.

"We find that the abyss of Emerich's alcoholism was so cavernous that he would and/or could not moderate his alcohol consumption so that he could safely drive," Charles wrote.

Charles said he was ordering Emerich to obtain an ignition-interlock device because an indefinite license suspension would be unfair, given his more recent efforts to reduce his beer consumption.

Although the state's ignition-interlock law is designed to address cases in which motorists drive drunk or refuse to take blood-alcohol tests, it does not expressly prohibit the use of the device for motorists with medically restricted licenses, Charles said.

"An interlock device will ensure that Emerich does not drive under the influence of alcohol," Charles wrote.

PennDOT spokesman Anthony Haubert said the department was pleased that the license suspension was upheld, and that it would comply with Charles' ruling.


Here is another article with some more details:

Fessing up to doctor costs drinker his license
By Patrick Kerkstra Inquirer Staff Writer
Like most people, Keith Emerich thought he could tell a doctor anything.

So the 44-year-old print-shop pressman answered honestly when asked during an office visit whether he drank alcohol. Yes, he said, six to 10 Budweisers a day.

That candor cost Emerich, of Lebanon, Pa., his driver's license.

In a strict reading of a Pennsylvania law that requires physicians to report patients with conditions that might "impair the ability to control and safely operate" a vehicle, the doctor notified the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation of Emerich's appetite for brew.

With nothing more to go on than two check marks on a one-page questionnaire, PennDot revoked Emerich's license indefinitely.

Emerich thought it was a joke when the notice arrived in the mail last April Fool's Day. His driving record was pristine since a conviction for driving under the influence 23 years ago, and he said he does not mix drinking and driving.

"What I do in the privacy of my home is none of PennDot's business," said Emerich, who is appealing the agency's decision in Lebanon County Court. A ruling is expected within weeks.

Medical ethicists said the case presents a serious confidentiality issue, and a reason for patients to lie to their doctors about any alcohol and drug use.

They also point out the obvious: It does not necessarily follow that someone who consumes a six-pack a day drives under the influence.

"A man who has sex isn't a danger to drive - unless he's doing it in the car while he's on the road," said Norman Quist, publisher of the Journal of Clinical Ethics, a peer-reviewed quarterly. Taking Emerich's license has "got to be the wackiest application of a principle that I've ever heard of."

Pennsylvania is one of only six states - including New Jersey and Delaware - that require doctors to inform on patients who might be unfit to drive, typically due to such conditions as epilepsy or unstable diabetes. However, Pennsylvania's 28-year-old law goes further than the others by adding alcohol and drug abuse to the must-report list - without defining what constitutes abuse.

To encourage compliance, Pennsylvania guarantees doctors anonymity and immunity from patient lawsuits. If they fail to turn in dangerous drivers, the state is one of three nationwide that hold them liable for accident damages.

All told, each year, about 21,000 Pennsylvanians are reported to PennDot by doctors; 6,000 of them are relieved of their licenses. Last year, 230 were banned from the road because physicians notified the agency of alcohol or drug use.

In New Jersey, so few licenses are revoked for substance abuse that the state does not tally them, and those are taken away only on the recommendation of addiction counselors or police, according to the state Motor Vehicle Commission.

PennDot officials defend their state's tough standards, noting that drivers can get their licenses back if a doctor will vouch that they are fit to drive.

"We don't want to arbitrarily take someone's driving privilege away, but it is a privilege. And we have the authority to recall that privilege," said Joan Nissley, a PennDot spokeswoman. "Someone who has an alcohol or substance-abuse problem that would impair their driving ability would not be someone we want on the roads."

Peter J. Cohen, a doctor and lawyer who teaches substance-abuse law at Georgetown University in Washington, sees "a neat public policy question: Drinking a six-pack at night doesn't necessarily mean you are an alcoholic. But you could be. Everybody knows alcoholics can constitute a driving risk."

Pennsylvania lawmakers, he said, "decided to err on the side of safety."

In 1976, the legislature created the Medical Advisory Board, a volunteer panel of physicians and government officials who decided which conditions warranted the yanking of licenses. The board periodically reviews the guidelines, most recently last month; the alcohol category was again left unchanged.

Although the reporting net doubtless snares some hard-core alcoholics, others contend that their drinking does not meet the standard.

"I'm just a regular Joe Six-pack," Emerich said.

At six feet tall, 250 pounds, he is a big enough man to drink six Buds in two hours and keep his blood-alcohol level within the legal limit of 0.08 percent, by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's formula.

At a hearing here on July 29, Emerich testified that he did his drinking exclusively at night and on weekends, and that it had never caused him to pass out or miss a shift at work.

A toxicology report from his February visit to Good Samaritan Hospital showed that he was alcohol-free. Earlier that day, his family physician had detected an irregular heartbeat. That doctor, as well as those who subsequently examined Emerich at the hospital, advised him to cut back on beer for his heart's sake.

No one, he testified, suggested that he was not fit to drive or needed alcohol counseling.

PennDot, Emerich and his lawyer have not disclosed the names of the doctors involved. And the court records are sealed to protect the identity of the one who reported Emerich.

The one-page form had no written comments. There was a check at alcohol abuse, and one at yes in response to the question: "Do these conditions affect the patient's ability, from a medical standpoint only, to safely operate a motor vehicle?"

Edmund G. Howe calls it "a crapshoot."

"What one doc considers abuse might not seem as severe to another doc," said the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical Ethics and a psychiatry professor at the Uniformed Services University at Bethesda, the U.S. military's medical school.

"I tend to think docs can't do two jobs and do them both well," Howe said. "They can't be adjuncts to the police force and at the same time form trusting relationships with patients."

Groups such as the American Medical Association have struggled to find the balance between public safety and patient confidentiality. The AMA advises doctors to report only drivers whose impairment poses "a clear risk to public safety" and to first discuss it with them.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has not taken a position on mandatory reporting. The group's Pennsylvania treasurer, Nancy Oppedal, said there is merit in revoking licenses of diagnosed alcoholics, even if they do not have DUI convictions.

For Emerich, who is single and lives alone, four months without a car have had an impact. At the hearing, he said his Bud habit was all but gone, reduced to a six-pack a week, tops.

"I'm not saying that just to get my license back," he said afterward. "It's for my health."

Emerich hopes the judge returns his license. But if not, he said, he will install an ignition interlock (which requires a breath screening before operating the car), enter treatment, or do whatever else it takes to get back behind the wheel.

"It's a crazy law," he said. "But I can't have my dad drive me around forever."

As is sh0wn by the example above there is no power that you can grant the state that sooner of later will not be misused.

In this case your also have a manufacturer or manufacturers with lobbyists and a vested interest in getting as many of PA citizens as 'customers' of their interlock services as possible.

Even a man who there is no valid reason to assume that he is a DUI driver but as Firefly is likely to say way take any chances.

We have the best government that money can buy.

No, that does not indicate my support of a .05 limit--it reflects the view of the man who wrote the article. That's one reason I didn't add any comments.

You really don't understand posting material to stimulate discussion, as food for thought.

I posted that article because of your idiotic insistence that .08 is a "low BAC", when there is nothing "low" about it, particularly when most of the world has a lower legal limit, and .08 is really the highest legal limit permissible in most of the world. The author of that article, a man who admits he likes to drink, feels that a limit of .08 is not only not "low", he feels it is too high, given the impairments he can recognize in himself before he even reaches that limit. Where you have repeatedly tried to deny or minimize the significant impairing effects of a .08 BAC level, this man was addressing them.

So, the posting of that article was intended to make people, particularly you, stop and think. Silly me, expecting that you could even stop and think, or even consider what someone else had to say.

This was your response to the article, and it reflects both how you distort what you read, and the lack of thought you put into your response.

The man never said that .08 was "completely blitzed", so either you failed to understand what he was saying, or you deliberately exaggerated and distorted his position in order to attack his point of view. In either event, you disregarded the valid aspects of his argument, and simply plowed on with your own nonsense. Food for thought is obviously lost on someone with little capacity or desire to think or re-consider.

The fact remains, I have not advocated a reduction in the legal BAC, and you will find no comments made by me in this thread to contradict that. Your continued insistence that I have advocated such a view simply reflects your need to use me as a straw-man, even when it involves fabricating what my views are. And, in the process, you make yourself look like a fool.

Your own arguments to suggest that .08 is a "low level"--in terms of driver impairment--are poorly founded, illogical, and disregard the neurophysiological effects of that amount of alcohol in the human body. Of course, .08 is less impairing than .19 or .24, but it is still a level at which significant impairments in driver skills, abilities, and faculties, can be objectively demonstrated.
And the effects of chemicals, like alcohol, on the central nervous system cannot be lumped together with, or validly directly compared to, momentary distractions, like talking on a cell phone, or to states of heightened emotional arousal or fatigue, as you keep trying to do. Those other factors may interfere with driver alertness and concentration, and impair good driving, and increase accident risk, but they are not the equivalent of chemicals, such as alcohol, directly impacting the central nervous system in terms of influencing sensory abilities, perception, and judgment. The issue of "distracted driving" should be addressed, and it is being addressed, but it is quite apart from the influence of drugs and alcohol which impair drivers quite differently.

You seem to approach the issue of drunk driving as a temperance issue rather than as a public safety issue. Your entire thrust has been in favor of allowing drivers to legally have more to drink before they get behind the wheel, with little or no logic to support that view in terms of public safety. You panic at the idea that the legal BAC level might be reduced to .05 because that might require you to drink less before you drive. You perceive the issue mainly from the perspective of someone who desires to legally drink excessively, in fact as much as possible, before driving. The issue of responsible driving, or unimpaired driving, doesn't seem to enter into your thinking at all.

Ideally, to be most unimpaired, people wouldn't drink any amount of alcohol before driving, a thought that seems never to have crossed your mind. And, if enhanced public safety is the objective, drivers should be encouraged to be as unimpaired and responsible as possible--not influenced by chemicals, not distracted by cell phones or other activities, not excessively tired or emotionally upset. Driving a car is a highly complex task that involves operating heavy machinery--and drivers are responsible for making sure they can perform that task with the minimum number of errors possible, because errors behind the wheel can have serious, and sometimes lethal, consequences. I don't know about you, but I want to be a responsible driver, I take the responsibility of driving very seriously.

Obviously, not everyone does take the responsibility of driving, or the issue of public safety, very seriously. That's why we need to make sure the DUI laws are enforced, and why we need to continue raising awareness and educating the driving public, and those efforts have paid off and have shown positive results, and they should be continued. Those are also the alternatives to pushing for a lower legal BAC level--simply make sure the current laws are strictly enforced. And that's one reason I'm not advocating for a reduction in the legal BAC. I think we can improve public safety by strong enforcement of our current laws, and by encouraging people not to drink and drive.

And I do think it is essential that we do not turn this discussion into an abstract numbers game without retaining the awareness that those numbers, reflecting alcohol-related auto deaths and accidents, represent human lives, very real people. And, as I've said before, that is the reason I post news stories about drunk driving--those drunk drivers and victims are real people, those are real lives being impacted by drinking and driving. I don't want people, particularly people like you and Hawkeye, to try to obscure that fact.

This topic thread was started because a very real person, known to some A2K members, became involved in a fatal drunk driving accident. For those people, Thom Swift isn't just a statistic, he's a quite real person, as was the cyclist who was killed. And that's why his case, and this thread, elicited our interest in the first place, and our interest in the legal outcome--it's about very real people and the impact of drunk driving on very real lives.

Please stop addressing your comments to me when they are based on an erroneous assumption, or a complete distortion, of my views. Go find yourself another straw-man.

Sorry dear but once more you are full of **** as if I posted an article I disagree with or do not support I make it damn clear that I disagree with or do not support that position taken by the article and I had found that almost a universal truth for all posters on all messages/discussions boards going back to the dial up BBSs days of the 1980s.

Your claims otherwise is just another attempted by you to have it both ways and to be able to support positions and yet when challenge on those positions who you do not currently wish to defend to disavowed them.

I know snakes are very useful animals in the chain of life and it is unfair to snake kind but still my mental picture of you is a snake attempting to slither away time after time.

I see you are still trying to defend an article you do not support the have it both ways firefly.

Maybe some others, in any case, here had seen a person at roughly .08 BAC needing to lean again a wall but in 63 years of life I had not seen such a person.

Next number games are important and needed in this area given the hard line drawn by the laws around the number .08.

Not a few people had their future decided over having a reading of .07 or instead .08.

Right. You, and the people you know, who have each consumed a full bottle of wine in two hours, have barely started their drinking for the day. So, for you, a .08 BAC is a "low level".

Any amount of alcohol impairs the functioning of the central nervous system and affects driving ability. The less one drinks before driving, the better.

Since you have such apparent difficulty understanding my posts, as well as difficulty understanding the need to promote unimpaired responsible driving, for reasons of public safety, don't bother to respond to my comments. If you haven't understood anything in 132 pages, you're not gonna get it.

LOL you are claiming to know how must I consume in what time period and even that it was wine!!!!!!!!!

What kind of wine do I drink Firefly?

For those who care I do enjoy a glass of wine after a meal from time to time and it tend to be a wine that is dry and red.

In any case, I had seen people drink the amount of alcohol in a time frame to reach .08 mainly beers or mixed drinks and as a footnote I never seen anyone doing so on wine but I am sure people do so.

Never seen any of these people leaning again a wall but had seems them dancing away mainly in country and western bars in my younger days.

Lord there was a steak house in Hialeah Florida call the Black Angus that has a live band on Friday and Saturday that was fun to said the least.

Before you launch your very predictable personal attacks in those days I would normally consume two mixed drinks in the first 45 minutes or so and then nurse a third drink for the rest of the night that normally ran into a time period frame of three to four hours.

No where near .08 dear heart even if you wish to paint me as a drunk for daring to disagree with the DUI laws and just as I do not collect CP even if you love trying to paint me as such for daring to disagree with the punishments levels for such crimes.

It kind of sad that you do not have the faith in your own arguments that you feel the need to go for personal attacks to try to discredit not the arguments but the persons holding those opinions.

This man was sentenced to 44 years for killing four in a DUI crash and he pleaded guilty!

http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2012/7/27/driver_in_dui_crash_.html

I would be interest to know if this person history was such that the court feel he would be a likely ongoing danger to society if not lock up for that period of time.

If this was not his normal behavior pattern to drive drunk or do similar behaviors then the punishment even for such an awful event seems the kind of harsh and a pointless punsihments that Firefly love to see handled down and all it does is added one more "death" to this crash at great ongoing cost to the society.

On the other hand if this kind of behavior was an ongoing one for this driver then it make sad sense to locked him up and throw away the keys.

So, if someone commits a murder, you'd want to know if "this kind of behavior was an ongoing one" before you'd "locked him up and throw away the keys"?
You'd only lock up serial murderers?

After someone has already killed 4 people, the legal system does not generally wait to see how more they might kill before imposing a harsh punishment. This sentencing was in accord with state of Florida guidelines.

This man killed 4 people. He was drunk and high on marijuana, and driving at 92 miles an hour in a 35 mph zone, when he went through a red light. And he stopped his trial in June and entered a plea of guilty to 4 counts of DUI manslaughter and one count of causing serious bodily injury.

Unlike you, this man takes responsibility for his behavior, and accepts his punishment.

Sorry dear Firefly but a large percents of murderers who actions are classify at less then first degree does not received such long prison terms and in those cases there was at least some intend to kill someone beforehand and that is not the case here.

Now when he decided to drive he was under the influence of a drug by the name of alcohol and you my friend had stated over and over that adult women are not responsible for their sexual actions under such an influence to the point we should send their male partners to prison for rape so how do you turn around and hold this driver fully responsible for his actions to the point he received a sentence of over four decades from the courts????????If he had a history of driving drunk to the point he is a clear and ongoing danger to society was he ever allow out of prison I can see that level of punishment however if this is not a typical behavior of his then it is a case of over sentencing.

I did take note he we was black and I would bet a large amount of money that the family he sadly wiped out was white.

We can always find more room in prison for another black male it would seems.

In case you haven't heard, drivers are held responsible for their actions behind the wheel, like speeding and going through red lights, and it is illegal to drive while drunk.

The man's actions behind the wheel caused the deaths of 4 people--and he admits to that, and accepts responsibility for his behavior. He's more in touch with reality than you are.

The thing you have to understand is that home brewed beer is cheaper than gas.

So don't drive, stay home, and just drink.

Viva la cerveza.

Great idea to send parents to prison or at the very best make sure they will not be able to support their families with a felony conviction on their record.

Good going............08 drivers with felonies..............

Might support such a law it drunk driving was in fact drunk driving at the lower limits.

Yet more of the state operating outside of its lane. Funerals are private, the state has zero business putting its finger on attendance.

No, most funerals are not private--they are open to anyone who wishes to attend--unless the family announces otherwise.

In terms of impressing a defendent with the consequences of drunk driving, attending a funeral like that one is probably more meaningful than spending some time in jail. And the judge gave the defendents a choice in the matter.

did he also give the loved ones of the dead a choice? Did they even get a warning that the state was doing this to them?