I just don’t understand drinking and driving

I agree with you on this, people shouldn't have to give out any personal information if they don't wish. Especially so, when the person requesting that information has an unhealthy sexual obsession with you. Bill seem to take some sort of perverted pleasure in divulging rather distasteful aspects of his personal life. Most normal people aren't like that. FF would be well advised to keep all her personal details private, she doesn't want to have to keep looking over her shoulder everytime she goes outside.

Whining that someone hasn't given you enough information to cyberstalk them is just kinda creepy.

Not that I would expect anything different from Bill. He is kinda creepy.

I've revealed plenty of information about myself, it's apparently just not the kind of information you are demanding I give you. And, in the 7 1/2 years I've been a member of A2K, you are the only person who has demanded certain types of information from me. In fact, I don't remember anyone ever demanding personal information from another member as you have repeatedly done with me.

It is your behavior which is not only odd, it reveals something very "deep and dark" about you. Your obsession with me is extremely unsavory.

People vary enormously in the amount of background info they post on sites like this for a multitude of reasons. Most members here, including you, do not have detailed profiles with such info as you have been demanding of me, nor do they have photos of themselves posted. Does that mean they are all hiding something and should be regarded as suspect? What nonsense. And people mention things about themselves in topic threads, which I have certainly done, when they think they are relevant to the topic, or because they want others to know these things so readers can place their comments in a particular context.

There are people who post at A2K quite regularly about whom I know absolutely nothing--I don't know their gender, nationality, race, etc., let alone their personal background details like family history, marital history, educational history, and work history, as you have been demanding from me. It doesn't bother me at all that I can't identify--or pigeon-hole--those posters, that doesn't affect my ability to understand their posts or respond to them. And it would never dawn on me to ask for more personal information. Why would I need it? If something about the person attracts or interests me, and I would like to get to know them better, in order to have a relationship with them, I'd likely send them a PM and not demand info from them in a topic thread. And I have done that with other A2K members. Rest assured, I have no desire to get to know you better or to have any sort of personal relationship with you.

You seem to need certain kinds of info so you can stereotype people and try to discredit their comments on the basis of such stereotypes, and you are terribly frustrated I'm not giving you your needed tools to do that. One of the main advantages of anonymity on the internet is that we are not saddled with the baggage or labels we carry around in real life--gender, age, social status, nationality etc.--that affect how others perceive us, and may also result in others either over-valuing our opinions, or discounting them, on the basis of what they associate with these labels. On the internet, people have to pay attention to what you are saying, without filtering it through all those labels, and that's a unique ability to be heard for oneself as an individual. You apparently fail to appreciate that aspect of this situation.

The degree of obsession you have with me is unhealthy. Your fantasies about me, of all sorts, are unhealthy. Your intrusiveness is unhealthy. The fact that you continue to perseverate on this issue is unhealthy.

I'm not "hiding" anything, certainly no deep, dark, shameful secrets. I go to some internet sites to socialize and to others simply to discuss topics and issues or to play trivia or word games. My focus is quite different at those different sites, just as it varies in real life situations, and how personal my interactions with other people are likewise varies, just as it does in real life situations.

Based on what you've chosen to tell me about yourself, you're the one preoccupied with hiding things. My computer isn't encrypted to the hilt as yours is, to prevent others, including the government, from finding things on it. I'm not paranoid about talking to the police, as you seem to be.

And no one has ever had to take out an Order of Protection against me, as someone did with you.

If you don't want people to know such things about you, don't mention them. But don't tell me, or anyone else here, what information about themselves you feel you have a right to know--you have no right to know anything about me.

I must agree with Firefly's reasoning.





David

On the other hand, bringing up red herrings does allow him to avoid the subject of drinking and driving, and is a nice distraction from how he's getting his ass handed to him in the discussion.

That does NOT include Firefly's statement
about non-paranoia to talk to the police. No, indeed!





David

I've had plenty of arguments with all sorts of people on this thread, but Bill is the only one who disgusts me. And that's not easy.

I said I'm not paranoid about talking to the police.

How can you disagree with that? It's a statement I made about myself, what I feel.

You know better than I do whether I'm generally paranoid about talking to the police?

Im trying to grasp the major disagreement here. Is it that we should allow all impaired driving . That doesnt make any reasonable sense. Being drunk is a continuum of chemical effect and the bodies response to ethanol. A really good metric has been the 0.8 BAC. It is the point where DUI's will be ticketed and you will lose a license or gain points to losing your license. If, that your BAC is <0.8 then you would be charged only if you get into an accident.

My advice is not to enter that continuum and then make these bets with yourself that you wont get in an accident or kill someone or get a DWI (we in Pa recognize anything MEASURASBLE if the driver has anotherMOVING VIOLATION) In other words, a cop wont arrest you with a DWI if you have a broken tail .light, but WILL arrest you if you were speeding. I think thats fair.

Weve had many more old coots drive themselves off roads and kill innocent people around here. These old farts get all hammered and then harvest Amish buggies. We had one last summer where a mother and three little kids were in a buggy and this guy, 55 years old, (BAC 0f 1.0) hit and ran. He was caught within 5 minutes cause he plowed into someones fence. The news papaers have been unmerciful, but the AMish, in their usual grace, have forgiven the guy.
BTW , he killed all four people in the buggy. He probably made a bet withhimself that "I can handle my likker" or "I aint an alcoholic, I only drink beer". Whatever, he ended the lives of four innocent people and fucked his forever more. Just cause he was stupid.

Drunk helmetless driving of Motorcycycles is probably the apex of stupid, but at least a motorcycleaccident will do most harm to the helmetless driver.
Actually, a helmet just helps the cops identify you by your dentition

Interesting Farmerman however most DUI accidents happen at must higher BAC levels when .08.

As far as driving impaired how about all the others ways that people do so that place their risk at least to the level of a BAC of .08?

Such as driving dead tired or driving when very emotionally upset or driving when you are a late teenager or an older person where the risks at BAC zero is roughly the same as a middle age driver at .08?

It not that simple.................

An a cut off point of .08 is very arbitrary let alone the drive now underway to have it drop to .05 or even lower.

I know thats what you say.
If you were driving home with a< 0.8 and got stopped for some traffic moving violation you would earn a ticket in Pa and an admonishment to either pull over till it wears off or Ill escort you home.

The cops arent gonna split hairs with you. You can try to make some kind of eloquent argument before a judge. I guarantee you will lose unless you can invalidate the breathalyzer. (This has been done early in its career until they started carrying known solutions of ethanol and a squeeze bulb).
As far as being able to handle the impaired condition better than a sober kid, thats not a valid excuse for driving impaired, and 0.8 has been decided upon by the insurance industry and the cops because there are definite signs of impaired reflexes and judgement at that level.
Of course twice as drunk is worse than "just drunk enough" .Is their a 2X impairment for the 1.6 guy? , I dont know but there IS a metric of impairment for 0.8

No its not. Nat Safety Council,DOT, and Insurance industry have done many many studies about ethanol impairment and the values ofbetween 0.06 to 0.09 is a threshold where there are clear signs of disinhibition (thats when you become a "Tequila ranger"), Also impaired are your reasoning, depth perception, peripheral vision, and rate of GLARE recovery. YOUR driving kills are impaired and measurably so. Thats why the 0.08 has been chosen. Nothing like having a guy who's half blind and has no inhibitions, drive a heavy hp missile.

In asserting your question
or objection, u left out significant CONTEXT.
If u look, u'll see that I agreed with your reasoning.
That agreement referred to your justification of privacy.

On re-consideration, I chose to declare my non-support
of your absence of paranoia qua talking to the police.
I was expressing dissent from your judgment
in failing to be paranoid qua talking to the police.
I was not denying that u hold that point of vu.
( In other words, I did not want my expression of agreement
with u to be understood to be an endorsement of talking to the police,
a terrible and unnecessarily dangerous idea, devoutly to be avoided.)


Talking to the police can bring bad luck; (guilt and innocence are irrelevant).
Perhaps u did not see these videos from a Law Professor ex-criminal defense attorney
and from a senior Police Officer that were posted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE

If u HAVE watched them, and if u disagree with their content,
will u inform us of your rationale?

I know that u r an admirably competent lawyer,
but on this point, it seems to me that
u have fallen into egregious error, with all respect.
I hope that u will not advise that to your clients.





David

Quite true.

And why he chooses this particular topic thread, about a man who's just been arrested for DUI manslaughter, to advocate for increasing the legal BAC level for drunk driving, or to bemoan any efforts to lower it, is anyone's guess, but he's engaged in a number of diversionary tactics and irrelevant issues to derail the topic discussion.

At a .08 BAC level a driver's attention, concentration, and reaction times will be decreased--at the very least--and those things affect driving ability and the ability to safely operate a motor vehicle for all drivers. BillRM's argument that we should have a much higher BAC level, more on a par with that of most drunk drivers involved in deadly crashes, completely ignores the fact that we are trying to avoid even minor accidents and non-fatal injuries, and property damage as well, with a .08 level, and there is nothing inherently unreasonable with that .08 level--drivers at that level experience impairments. Why make it easier and legal for people to drive in an even more impaired state? What goal would that be attempting to accomplish?

Similarly, the entire criminal justice system is not suspect because of this case, nor is the public defender system, nor is the plight of the homeless, or the ability of D.A.s to offer plea deals, or the income flow to restaurants and bars from selling alcohol, directly relevant to the situation of the man we have been discussing in this thread. Those might be interesting topics, but they don't explain why Thom Swift apparently chose to drove drunk or why he is now charged with DUI manslaughter/leaving the scene and failing to aid the victim, or why his friends would be more concerned with his plight than the fate of the victim. And, because Thom Swift got arrested does not mean the laws or the punishments for violating those laws are wrong, and nothing we know about this case suggests that.

So, when BillRM digresses to harp about the fact he feels he doesn't know enough about me, it's just another of the many diversionary tactics he's used in this discussion. People should not drink and drive because the consequences of such a decision can be harsh and tragic. That's the reality of the situation. That's a reality BillRM has been trying to dodge with one distraction or another. Regardless of any other circumstances of that accident, it was Swift's decision to drink and drive that got him into the legal situation he faces now because he had no legal right to even be on the road legally drunk. BillRM has been trying to put the responsibility for his legal situation everywhere else but on Thom Swift which is why BillRM's gone all over the map with his comments.

The fact that people do other irresponsible or distracting things when behind the wheel, or drive when extremely tired or emotionally upset, does not mean we should not try to stop people from driving when chemically impaired by substances that dimish their capacities, whether those substances are alcohol or drugs.

All older drivers show the same degree of impairment as a middle aged person with a BAC level >.08?
The risk that an older driver will be involved in an accident is only slightly greater than the risk for a middle aged sober driver--and the older driver is much less likely to be drunk than the middle aged driver.

Your arguments for increasing the legal BAC limit for driving really don't make much logical or common sense.

And a thread about someone who was recently arrested for DUI manslaughter seems an odd choice for a place to even make such a case.

Bill seems to be making a good case for having his licence revoked. He is clearly confused, unable to articulate the simplest of notions. He's of failing years, or as he describes himself;

When you add alcohol into the mix that's a lethal combination.

Your research is ADMIRABLE, Firefly !





David

Yes it is. I have enjoyed the different opinions posted here and so have 30 followers in town.

Thank u.
We 'd be enriched by their posting.

Do u have an opinion
of the reason that cs expresses himself with such anger
and discourtesy toward Morgan ?

Do u wanna tell us your first name or nickname,
so we can call u by it?

If u feel telling us anything about yourself,
or what u like or dislike about anything,
u r free to fill out a profile. Many people don t.





David

People drink and drive because they get smarter after a few beers.
Here is how it works .......

A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first.

This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first.

In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.

That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers.

Do thay wait for him ?