Law Requires Alcohol Testers in Every Car

It's an interesting thought and will hopefully raise awareness and keep drivers focused on what they are drinking and what impact that has. However, since this is not an interlock requirement there will be nothing stopping a person from driving if they are above the legal limit. It will be interesting to see whether self regulation will be of any help.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caren-osten-gerszberg/drinking-and-driving_b_1322482.html?ref=women

Drinking And Driving, Mon Dieu! New French Law Requires Breathalyzers In All Cars

Caren Osten Gerszberg

I've spent many an afternoon driving through the countryside of France -- my mother's homeland -- in a small Peugeot rental car. Together, my mom and I have pulled over alongside a field of sunflowers or a stretch of sandy beach to lay out a picnic where we'd eat and sip the locally made wine. On my next trip, however, I'll not only think twice about taking the wheel after a picnic, but I'll also be blowing into a Breathalyzer to be certain my blood alcohol level is within the legal limit.

Beginning July 1, a new law in France will require all motor vehicles (except mopeds) to have a breathalyzer on hand. The new rule can be found in French at Legifrance. It seems unexpected that a country like France, known for its love of le vin, would spearhead this campaign against drinking and driving, but perhaps not surprisingly, nearly 30 percent of all road fatalities in France are alcohol-related -- a higher rate than in Germany and the UK. In fact, alcohol has been the leading cause of road deaths in France since 2007.

To bring these numbers down and save lives (and there is an election coming), French President Sarkozy has chosen to target drunk driving. According to numerous reports, French authorities will accept a one-time disposable type that costs less than two dollars. They are recommending, however, that motorists buy them in pairs so there's an additional one in case a fellow-imbibing passenger is in need.

The French police will begin strictly enforcing the new law as of November 1, with many spot checks on roads. The idea is that every time a driver (native or tourist) gets into their car after having a drink, they will have a device with which to test if there blood alcohol content (BAC) is over the mandated blood alcohol limit for drinking in France, .05 BAC. That is a much stricter limit than the U.S. limits of .08 in 17 states and 0.10 in 33 states, according to a US government survey.

Because the drunk driving penalty in France is much higher than the "no breathalyzer" fine, the hope is that drivers will eventually begin to self-test before driving. They may risk not having the breathalyzer on hand if they are stopped, but at least they'll know if they are under the legal limit and the fine will be less.

It's possible that this new law may pose some linguistic challenges for non French-speaking tourists who wish to cruise around the countryside. A piece in Budget Travel magazine reports that Hertz rental cars will provide the breathalyzers for free; Avis and Budget had no comment yet on the situation.

France is the first country to enact a breathalyzer on-hand legislation, and I imagine the rest of the world will be watching to see how it affects the road toll. If the new legislation saves lives, the law might be something to consider on this side of the Atlantic. Vive la France ...?

Personal feelings and the expert witness

I've expressed the statement before of course that the role of the expert witness is to be objective and speak for the science, but no matter how often I've said that, I'm constantly encountering the attitude that it is a personal thing. As if feelings have some sort of place in science. Remember the "There's no crying in baseball!" it's the same thing, there's no emotion in science.

Compare evolution and creationism. Evolution is based on observations in nature, experiments carried out in the lab, and fossil evidence. Creationism is based on feelings. As a scientist I have to look at the evidence and see that the evidence for evolution far, far outweighs the "feelings" of creationism. I'm obviously not in the minority there and that's because that is what science is about.

When an experiment is carried out, the goal of a scientist and all scientific procedure is to disprove the theory, not to prove it. That's a huge distinction and one that is crucial to scientific understanding. Whether I want my theory to be true or not, doesn't matter. At least not to any credible scientist.

Most of my work involves DUI and let me tell you, my personal feelings play no part. Why? Because it's not my job. It's not my job to argue the case, it's not my job to make the decisions. I am not the fact finder. That is a wonderfully freeing thing and I'm not sure why people resist that. My only job is to explain the science and see if everything is working properly. If it is, I say so. If it isn't, I say so. How I "feel" doesn't matter.

Pointing out a problem is not a personal attack. It is the role of the scientist to look at the data and base your opinion on the data, not on what you want the outcome to be. And that's what I always strive to do. The only difference in being an expert witness is that you have to express it in layman's terms so that the non-science community can understand it and make their own decisions.

I've worked for both the prosecution and the defense. I've been thanked by parents who have lost a child to an impaired driver. I've seen people facing the loss of their pension over a mistake. It's not a simple thing.

Thankfully, it's not my job to have feelings about it and any "scientist" that puts their emotions before the data is no scientist at all. I'm human. I'm not cold. I do have feelings of course, but they don't matter. My job is to explain the science, and that's what I do.

Man brings beer to DUI hearing

Some people are just their own worse enemies... Enjoy some light reading on this beautiful Friday!

 

 

 

 

 Man brings beer to DUI hearing

By Associated Press

Devils Lake Journal

Posted Mar 23, 2011 @ 01:00 PM

Devils Lake, ND —

MONTICELLO, N.Y. (AP) — Authorities say a New York man appearing before a judge on a felony drunken driving charge arrived at court an hour and a half late, drunk and carrying an open can of Busch beer.
Sullivan County Undersheriff Eric Chaboty says Keith Gruber of Swan Lake had four unopened beer cans in his bag Monday when he tried to walk through the metal detector at the county courthouse.

The Middletown Times Herald-Record reports that Judge Frank LaBuda asked the 49-year-old Gruber if he enjoyed his "liquid lunch." Gruber said he did, then said he was sorry. The judge revoked his bail and sent him to jail, where he remained Tuesday.

Gruber was arrested Dec. 27 in the town of Liberty and was out on $30,000 cash bail. He has prior DWI convictions.

The judge dismissed Gruber's court-appointed lawyer Monday because Gruber refused to cooperate with him. A phone number listed for Gruber was disconnected.

The Trouble with DUID: Part I

Five years ago, give or take, when Vermont was first getting a DRE ("Drug Recognition Evaluator" formerly "Drug Recognition Expert") program I did a presentation for my colleagues entitled "The Trouble with DUID." With the recent talk of banning Four Loko and dealing with the "Spice" issue, which I will save to discuss in detail later, it's gotten me thinking again about that presentation and the issue of legislation.

Legislation, as with any move from government agencies it seems, is very reactionary in it's nature. "Oh my God, here's one instance of something that happened, quick ban it!" Maybe a bit of a dramatization, but it certainly seems that way. Don't believe me? Look up www.stupidlaws.com. You'll note that in Vermont at one time it was illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole. Think that was reactionary? Or another example. How about the TSA screening procedures?

What has the focus been on the Four Loko ban? Look at any of the articles or the bills being introduced and you will see the focus is on the caffeine and the brightly colored packaging. Were those college kids hospitalized for caffeine intoxication? No, it was alcohol poisoning. My prediction is that the bills will ban caffeine containing alcoholic beverages. My second prediction is that Four Loko will simply drop the caffeine, add a little more guarana and be back on the shelves in no time. Leaving the problem of a 12% alcohol 24 ounce pop top beverage that will still be intriguing due to it's low price and high alcohol content.

The same thing is occurring with Spice. There are 400 variations of the synthetic THC used, but the lawmakers are all busily making lists of chemicals to ban. Chemicals that they are seeing now. They'll ban those few that are common place now, leaving the rest legal. The manufacturers will simply switch variations and it will be legal again. A presenter at NEAFS presented an interesting idea. Simply ban anything that binds to the cannabinoid receptor. Then every variation is, by mechanism of action, illegal.

So what does that have to do with DUID? Driving Under the Influence of Drugs for those not familiar with the acronym. Well, several years ago, I was presented with pending legislation to change the DUID statute in Vermont. We were asked to review and comment on the wording. The bill wasn't original. It was adapted from another state and followed a similar pattern and a poor one at that. It simply listed drugs that were no-nos. This created a problem for some. #1 Drugs that were Schedule I were less of an issue, since they are already illegal, but the legislature wanted numbers like the per se limits in the DUI laws. #2 Those drugs that had therapeutic uses were concerning. The legislature did not want to make it illegal for someone to drive "legally impaired."

That phrase absolutely screeches in my head like nails on a chalkboard. I'm sure I'd feel much better if a friend or family member were killed by someone driving "legally impaired." What they meant was that they felt that people who were prescribed medication should not be banned from driving since they were given the drug legally by their doctor. Some how the fact that those medications all come with warnings that people should not operate motor vehicles was irrelevant. The biggest problem with this is our country's love affair with pharmaceuticals, but that's a separate issue.

Anyways, I digress. Alcohol is a nice clean, linear, neat drug. The effects are universal and occur at vice nice linear progressions until at the highest level death occurs. Per se limits can be put into effect because ethanol's affect on people is very consistent. Drugs don't follow this pattern. They don't all affect people linearly nor have the same effects on every person. This makes per se limits very difficult to impose. Factoring in as well that people don't want to ban therapeutic levels of drugs, it's a complicated issue.

I think when we focus on lists and per se limits we're starting to be unable to see the forest for the trees. In Vermont, the DUI laws indicate that a person can not operate a motor vehicle when they are under the influence of alcohol to the slightest degree. The drug law however, states that the person must be unable to operate a motor vehicle safely. That is a huge discrepancy and due in part to the difficulties stated above. Unless someone crashes their car with an illegal drug in their blood at a high level, it's difficult to prove that the drug caused it.

On the next post we'll continue from there and continue to outline the Trouble with DUID.

DUI by Vanilla Extract

Some people seem to believe that as long as the alcohol doesn't come from the standard beer, wine or liquor, that it somehow doesn't count. They try to blame the cough syrup or NyQuil for the breath test. Now the problem with that logic is that the alcohol in Nyquil is the same, chemically speaking, as the alcohol in a drink. It's all ethanol. It's all the same stuff. Whether you sat down and had a six pack or chugged a bottle of NyQuil, the impairment is the same and is addressed by the same law. (Things get twitchy with rubbing alcohol since that is not the same alcohol that is addressed by most DUI laws.)

This is the first time I've ever seen DUI by vanilla extract though. The woman in question was found slumped over the wheel with partially empty vanilla extract bottles that she had been mixing with coke. That sounds vastly more appealing than drinking rubbing alcohol, but when you consider that a cookie recipe require one teaspoon of vanilla and she was drinking it by the ounce...maybe not so appealing anymore. The woman in question didn't take a test so the rest is all speculation, but an interesting academic exercise none-the-less.

The vanilla extract in the car was 35% alcohol by volume and the woman purchased two eight ounce bottles. Both were partially empty according to the officer, but we don't now how much was missing. So how high could you get off of vanilla? Let's assume the woman in question was 150 pounds. For each ounce of vanilla she would gain a 0.020 blood alcohol concentration. Without elimination she could reach 0.160 on each bottle of vanilla extract. Of course the longer she drank, the lower the result would be because she would be eliminating alcohol at the same time.

Either way, could you get yourself intoxicated off of vanilla extract? YES. Would you want to? That is a very different question.