Ignition Interlocks
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:28 PM

A new study analyzing New Mexico's experience with requiring first-time DUI offenders to have an ignition interlock device installed in their cars has been in the news the past couple of days. (Interlocks prevent the car from starting unless an alcohol breath test is passed.) The study shows, basically, that this interlock requirement, when it actually results in the devices being installed, is pretty effective at reducing the probability that a driver will be caught driving drunk again. The previous research base suggested that interlock mandates were effective for drivers who had multiple DUI convictions, but results were ambiguous concerning first-time DUI offenders.

Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman notes how well-targeted the interlock mandate is:

It [the interlock mandate] also has benefits for the culprits. In most states, the standard method for stopping drunken drivers is to revoke their licenses so they aren't allowed to drive at all. Under this policy [interlocks], they may drive all they want as long as they're stone cold sober. It incapacitates the incorrigible while sparing the repentant. A canceled license, which lets the offender police his own conduct, does the opposite.

Will this new evidence be enough to convince one Arizona state representative to change his mind about interlock mandates for first-time DUI offenders...yet again?

Labels: alcohol, driving, interlocks

 
Parking Ticket Profanity
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:37 PM

A few months ago, a fine fellow received a ticket for a parking violation in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. (Actually, that scenario probably arises daily.) He did what any proud, free American would do -- he sent in a check to pay his fine. Oh yeah, he also wrote on the check: 'Go (Bleep) Yourself.' The aftermath?

Well this little display of pique or defiance or whatever you want to call it resulted in borough police charging him with disorderly conduct for using obscene language - the F-word - in public, that is to say, on a public document, which his parking fine check was deemed to be.

Oh, this would have made for a super Supreme Court case, one that would have settled for a long time the extent to which we can legally curse our employees, our agents, our hirelings, the government. Alas, Doylestown had no stomach for the fight. At the trial, they offered to drop the disorderly conduct charge as long as our petulant parker paid the original ticket and provided a written apology to the borough clerk whose eyeshade had come across the sarcastic suggestion. (They had to insist on the parking ticket being paid because the ticket itself was sort of out of action, having become evidence in the disorderly conduct charge.) The mouthpiece for the foulmouth accepted the deal, and the possibility of a journey to the Supremes was nipped in the bud, much to the detriment of our republic.

Perhaps you might want to know what century they are living in in Doylestown? Here's some (accurate) information that might provide a clue. The parking fine was $5, and the possible penalty for disorderly conduct was $25 plus court costs. In Chicago, $5 is what they fine you if you are legally parked.

Labels: driving, obscenity

 
Ignition Interlocks
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:53 PM

Today's New York Times includes an article on automobile ignition interlocks, those devices that are designed to prevent a car from starting if the driver is alcohol impaired. The theme of the article is that technology has not developed to the point where it would make sense to require interlocks for all cars, as opposed to only the rides of drivers who have been convicted of drunk driving.

The interlock devices that are sometimes court-mandated cost about $125 to install, plus monthly maintenance fees of $60 to $75, according to the article. How do they work?

To start a car, the driver must puff a breath into the unit. To avoid cheating, the breath puff is measured and must be given in a uniquely identifiable way that would be hard for a person who is not the driver to duplicate. Inside the unit, a small fuel cell converts any alcohol into electrical energy, which is measured and recorded. If no alcohol is detected, the driver can start the car. If alcohol is detected, the system turns off the power to the ignition.

The breath puff isn’t just for starting cars. While driving, the driver must periodically blow into the system to keep the car running. Typically, the data is downloaded every 30 days and is available to probation officers and court officials.

A related article talks about options for drivers who want to test their own blood alcohol content before they get behind the wheel. That article notes that these unofficial tests need not be accurate, but fails to note that the accuracy of police-administered breathalyzers also is highly questionable -- for evidence, read some of the posts (such as this one) at DUI Blog.

Vice Squad checks in on ignition interlocks from time to time.

Labels: alcohol, driving, interlocks

 
Zero Tolerance for Alcohol With Youthful Drivers
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:55 PM

Vice Squad is not all that keen on zero tolerance (ZT) policies aimed at adult vice. But Phil Cook's Paying the Tab notes at least one dimension of success with respect to zero tolerance policies targeted at young drivers (those under 21, and hence, in the US, unable to legally purchase alcohol) who consume alcohol. Congress pressured individual states to adopt ZT laws (not unlike the manner in which in Congress adopted an effectively national minimum drinking age and blood-alcohol standard for drunk driving), which enhanced penalties for underage drivers who were operating their vehicles after drinking any detectable amount of alcohol whatsoever.

All the states had come into line by 1998. The resulting natural experiment generated strong evidence that the ZT laws reduced by 13-20 percent binge drinking and total alcohol consumption by males. Thus, the demand for alcohol was reduced by limiting one unfortunately complementary activity, namely, driving.

The quote, minus an internal citation, is from pages 78-79 of Paying the Tab.

Labels: alcohol, Cook, driving, teens, zero tolerance

 
Open Containers
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:15 PM

The US has a de facto national minimum drinking age of 21, even though setting a drinking age falls within the power of the several states. Likewise, there's a de facto national blood-alcohol content (BAC) standard for drunk driving, 0.8 (centigrams per milliliter). These alcohol policy benchmarks were thrust upon the states by threats to cut the federal highway funds of those states whose standards were less strict than the federal guidelines.

But there is one element of alcohol policy on which the federal government has not been quite as successful in forcing compliance upon the states: open container laws. The feds want states to (among other things) prohibit open containers of alcohol in cars, even if the driver is not consuming any alcohol. The penalties for non-compliance are not all that draconian, however: three percent of the scofflaw state's allotment of federal highway funds becomes earmarked for anti-alcohol purposes. A handful of those ornery states have been willing to pay this price to skirt the federal mandates.

The recent news is that Delaware will remain outside the fold. The state senate couldn't get around to approving a bill that would have mildly fined drivers whose adult passengers were tippling during the trip. (Actually, I am uncertain whether the fine was to be imposed upon the driver or the open-container-possessing passenger. Montana, for instance, fines the passenger.) Delaware has shown more backbone in this regard than Texas, a state which practically celebrated open containers (even for drivers) when Vice Squad resided there in the early 1980s.

I haven't studied the issue, but my unconsidered reaction is to oppose federal fiscal pressure to coerce states into passing laws that the feds support but do not have the direct power to enact. We have a federal system with enumerated powers for the center. Since the Constitution that set up this system was passed, we have evolved a framework of public finance that makes states quite reliant upon transfers from the central government. Threats to cut off funding, therefore, can be used (and I think have been used) to shift state legislative authority to the federal government, dissolving the constitutional limits placed upon federal powers. Sorta like the commerce clause dodge...

Labels: alcohol, driving

 
Arizona Legislator Changes His Mind
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:18 PM

Last month, Arizona passed a law requiring ignition interlock devices to be installed in automobiles driven by people who have been convicted of driving under the influence, even after a first (and relatively minor) DUI offense. State Representative John Kavanagh voted for the measure. But now he has publicly repudiated his vote. Why? He read the research base about the effects of such laws, and found that the evidence suggests that they do not make it more likely that first-time offenders will not re-offend. So Representative Kavanagh has introduced an amendment that would only require the ignition interlock for first-time nonextreme DUI offenders if they were involved in a traffic accident and committed (another) traffic violation at the time of their DUI arrest.

My understanding of the research accords with that of Representative Kavanagh. (I gained that understanding by reading memos written by more than twenty of my students on whether Illinois should adopt a first-time DUI offender interlock mandate.) But I also wonder if the measure of effectiveness is too narrow -- it concerns re-offending by first-time DUI violators, and there is basically no evidence to show that the interlock mandate decreases such re-offending. But that is not to say that the possibility of having an interlock device installed might not help deter non-offenders from becoming first-time offenders. There also is an issue with the length of time for which the interlock is mandated (and what those time lengths were in the previous studies), or whether the mandated interlock actually is installed. And it might make sense to offer an interlock as a choice that a convicted drunk driver could make in lieu of some other penalties; perhaps his insurance company would "subsidize" that choice by offering lower rates (a smaller increase, presumably) if the interlock is installed. (One problem is that the devices that require on-the-go retesting can be cumbersome and distract a driver, however.)

But what about this Representative Kavanagh, who has put himself in danger of being cast as a fickle flip-flopper, someone who won't stay the course, who actually allows evidence to influence his votes? The description at the bottom of the linked article explains: "State Rep. John Kavanagh is a Republican from Fountain Hills. He [is] a retired police officer who has a Ph.D. in criminal justice and heads the criminal justice program at Scottsdale Community College. He previously taught courses in statistics and research methodology at Arizona State University."

Labels: alcohol, driving, interlocks

 
Economies of Scope
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:29 PM

Is it an iPod FM-transmitter, or is it an alcohol breathalyzer? It's an iPod FM-transmitter and an alcohol breathalyzer! And for $79 (more in California), it could be yours if you act fast.

Vice Squad has noted the appeal of a device that allows drivers to be (fairly) sure that they are not over the legal limit. The transmitter/breathalyzer apparently can provide this assurance, though it might not tell you how much above the legal limit (.08 BAC in the US) you are, as the top reading is .12.

Thanks to Radley at The Agitator for the pointer.

Labels: alcohol, driving

 
Ignition Interlocks
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:43 AM

Yesterday I intended to say something about ignition interlock devices for cars, but I got derailed. What I have to say about them is that they are gaining in popularity, in terms of being mandated for drunk-driving offenders.

Interlock devices try to determine whether a driver is impaired; if impairment is detected, the car will not start, or, if it is already running, the car will be shut down. There are various technologies that are available (including Saab's Alko-key), but most involve having the driver blow some air into a detector. Frequent retests are required, in part to dissuade people from using surrogates to bypass the test. (Many people who occassionally drive after doing a bit of drinking might like to have such a device installed, to protect them against inadvertantly driving while over the legal limit; such people will not be interested in circumventing the control. But some people, alas, will prefer to evade a positive test and drive legally drunk rather than waiting until sobriety or other means of locomotion arrive.)

In 2005, New Mexico (following an earlier policy adopted in Maryland) required that first-time drunk driving offenders have ignition interlock devices installed, and the law was credited with inducing a fall in drunk driving deaths. Mothers Against Drunk Driving is now pushing for a similar measures nationally. In Victoria, Australia, January 1 brought in a new law that would require interlocks for young first-time drunk driving offenders.

Interlock systems do not work if they are not installed, however. It seems like that is the frequent outcome in the state of Washington, even after a court orders that an offender acquire an ignition interlock: 4,400 interlock systems have been installed in Washington, while 28,000 drivers have been ordered to obtain the devices.

Labels: alcohol, driving, interlocks

 
'External' Drunk Driving Deaths
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:21 PM

Some 13,000 Americans are killed in accidents involving drunk drivers each year. Many of these fatalities are neither the drivers themselves nor passengers in their cars -- that is, many of the deaths clearly involve "externalities". Precisely how many is less clear, at least to me. A well-known 1989 article* noted a Department of Transportation estimate that 7,400 of 22,400 alcohol-related traffic fatalities in 1985 were of individuals who had not been drinking, though presumably many of these individuals were passengers in the drunk drivers' cars. In the EU, it has been estimated** that 10,000 of 17,000 drunk driving fatalities each year are of people other than the drinking driver. Professor Becker, in the blog post that we recently linked to, mentioned a figure of more than 2000 external drunk-driving deaths in the year 2000, from an analysis by Professor Kevin Murphy.

The distinction between drivers and their passengers on the one hand, and others, on the, well, other hand, is only important if you think that the risks of riding with the impaired driver have somehow been fully taken into account in decisions to be such a passenger, and that the 'decision' to drive drunk is somehow rational, too. If these conditions hold, the 'external' costs of the driving are only those imposed on pedestrians or people riding in other cars (abstracting from still further issues with respect to public and private car and health insurance).

To be honest, this started as a post about ignition interlock devices, but my ignorance about the external deaths from drunk driving led things in another direction. Not that I have undone my ignorance on this topic -- I have simply sketched its contours. Please e-mail vicesquad at gmail.com if you can shed some light on this issue.

The original topic (ignition interlocks), as well as the figure of 13,000 drinking-related traffic deaths each year, was drawn from a current MADD initiative.

*Manning, W.G., E. B. Keeler, J. P. Newhouse, E. M. Sloss, and J. Wasserman, “The Taxes of Sin: Do Smokers and Drinkers Pay Their Way?” Journal of the American Medical Association 261(11): 1604-1609, March 17, 1989.

**See Anderson, Peter, and Ben Baumberg, “Alcohol in Europe – A Public Health Perspective.” Report for the European Commission, Institute of Alcohol Studies, UK, June 2006.

Labels: alcohol, driving

 
Becker and Posner on Drunk Driving...and Vice More Generally
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:58 PM

In late December the Becker-Posner blog looked at drunk driving in the US. Professor Becker suggested that drunk driving is significantly underpunished. Judge Posner thinks it might make more sense just to punish those drunk drivers who actually cause harm to others:

If there are 1.4 million annual arrests for drunk driving, and if we assume realistically that this is only a fraction of the actual incidents of drunk driving, yet only 2,000 innocent people are killed by drunk drivers, then it follows that most drunk driving is harmless. Why then punish it with arrests and severe penalties? Why not just punish those drunk drivers who cause deaths or injuries to nonpassengers?

One point that I might add is that the probability of being arrested given that you drive drunk seems to be quite low in the US: perhaps a chance of 1 in 200. [Update: An analysis (99-page pdf) using more recent data, and the new "national" Blood Alcohol Content standard of .08, puts the likelihood that a drunk driver will be arrested in the US at about 2%.]

The Becker-Posner blog has become a leading source for vice policy analysis. The second half of 2006 has featured, in addition to the drunk driving commentary, the following topics:

Internet Gambling -- August 2006

Doping in Sports -- August 2006

Taxing Fat -- October 2006

Legalizing Polygamy -- October 2006

Advertising and Obesity of Children -- December 2006

Labels: alcohol, arrests, driving

 
Lazy Link-Based Post
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:32 PM

Well it is finals week here at Vice Squad central and that means some neglect of blogging duties. Fortunately, our virtual comrades are more reliable:

(1) Libby at Last One Speaks highlights two marijuana-related prosecutions. One of the incidents features, as an arrestee, a middle-aged former prosecutor; the second is an 18-year old kid who was selling a batch of pot brownies. Which of these defendants is likely to do some serious time? Hint: Not the one who simultaneously was charged with drunk driving and possessing a loaded firearm while intoxicated.

(2) Ken at Crim Law via CrimProf Blog via Objective Justice points us to this tale of a former judge who was ordered to stay off the sauce while serving his 90-day home confinement for fixing traffic tickets. He caught a cold, took some Nyquil and went to bed. A surprise visit from a probation officer led to detection of the alcohol from the cold medicine, and a week of non-home confinement. (I should mention that the ex-judge had been warned to notify the authorities in advance of any cold-medicine-taking, which he failed to do.)

(3) Mark Kleiman brings us up to date on ayahuasca; somehow the feds were able to take time off from their porn crackdown (hat tip to Radley at The Agitator) to try to convince the Supreme Court to allow them to suppress the sacramental use of tea containing the South American hallucinogen (i.e., ayahuasca, silly).

(4) Lawrence at DUI Blog explains why even people who don't care about drunk driving should care -- I think that his point applies to vice policy more generally.

Labels: alcohol, driving, hallucinogen, marijuana, policing

 
A Wrong Turn at Colby? [Clarified!]
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:31 PM

Well, distilled alcohol producers might not advertise in college newspapers but many college kids, even those under the age of 21, still drink. Further, some of them drink irresponsibly, and with tragic results that are lamentably common.

Last weekend, some 14 students at Colby College in Maine were charged with underage drinking or related offenses. But in their eagerness to control underage drinking, I am afraid that local law enforcement personnel might be inadvertently contributing to tragic outcomes. From the sound of what is said in the linked article, when someone drinks excessively and needs to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, the police will also respond in order to see if underage drinking is taking place and to ticket the offenders. This can easily lead to situations where kids postpone calling medical authorities for too long -- calling an ambulance for an acquaintance is like calling the cops on yourself. Instead of "taxing" such calls for help, I think subsidies might even be in order. Another policy that is announced in the article is that sober designated drivers who are good enough to provide safe passage to drinking kids will themselves be arrested and charged with the crime of furnishing a place for minors to consume alcohol. Hadn't we seen enough of that in Naperville?

Correction: The author of the linked story was good enough to send in an update. The police have clarified their policy with respect to non-drinking drivers who are giving a ride to their in-the-cups friends. If there is no drinking going on inside the car, only the passengers will be summonsed, for possession of alcohol by a minor. The driver will only be charged with furnishing a place for minors to consume alcohol if the passengers are drinking in the car.

Labels: alcohol, driving, harm reduction, teens

 
Arizona's Later Closing Time After Six Months
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:25 PM

A little more than six months ago Arizona changed its closing time laws, allowing alcohol to be sold until 2AM instead of the previous 1AM, and allowing bars to remain open until 2:30 instead of 1:15. When the bill was signed, the Governor asked for an evaluation of the new system after six months, and that evaluation has now been produced. The still-quite-preliminary verdict: "A law that delayed Arizona's cutoff for alcohol sales to 2 a.m. has shifted when many DUI arrests and alcohol-related crashes take place but has not increased their numbers, two state agencies say in new reports."

Labels: alcohol, Arizona, closing hours, driving

 
Ohio's Attempt to Stigmatize Drunk Drivers
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:05 PM

It's not like drunk drivers otherwise get good press or anything, but it is hard to know if the person in the car next to you has recently been convicted of drunk driving. The state of Ohio helps to make such inferences easier by requiring "yellow [license] plates with red lettering for drivers with two DUI convictions in a six-month span or those who record high blood-alcohol levels." But motorists, even those who seemingly fit the criteria, are finding ways to avoid the Scarlet Lettering. One way is to plead no contest to a charge that doesn't require that you admit your high blood-alcohol reading. A second way is to try to postpone sentencing until after the 6-month license suspension has already elapsed, as (somehow) this means you can avoid the color coded plates. Ohio legislators are looking at ways to limit such dodges, according to the linked article.

In related news, DUI Blog has a recent interesting post about the evolution and likely future of DUI laws in the US.

Labels: alcohol, driving, sentencing

 
New Year's Eve and Alcohol
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:15 AM

New Year's Eve never fails to bring out our ambiguous relationship with alcohol. Imbibing is part of the stereotypical New Year's Eve celebration. Even excessive drinking receives a bit more of a pass on New Year's: newspapers tend to run stories about purported hangover preventions or cures at this time of year (examples here and here.) But the ambiguity is evidenced by the other sorts of alcohol stories in the news, particularly those involving drunk driving; here's an excerpt from one such story, from the LA Times: "New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are the most dangerous days of the year when it comes to alcohol-related collisions, according to a recent study by the Automobile Club of Southern California. Drivers and passengers on those days are 148% more likely to be killed or injured in a drunk driving crash than on other days."

Recently, some communities have been promoting alcohol-free celebrations, thanks largely to the efforts of First Night International. From their website: "First Night seeks to foster the public's appreciation of visual and performing arts through an innovative, diverse and high quality New Year's Eve program which provides a shared cultural experience, accessible and affordable to all." Here's the list of more than 130 municipalities that will host First Night celebrations today.

In general, I think that vice regulations should make it not too costly for someone to live in a "standard" way without being subjected at every turn to vices that he or she might prefer to avoid. In much of the US, it is hard for teetotalers or recovering alcoholics to shield themselves from alcohol in their day-to-day activities, and I can't go to my local deli without facing the importuning of the state of Illinois to sell me lottery tickets. At any rate, events like First Night celebrations are, I think, useful developments, by providing a "regular," but alcohol-free, New Year's celebration.

However you choose to celebrate, have a happy and safe New Year, and may 2005 smile upon you.

Labels: abstinence, alcohol, driving

 
Youth Will Not Be Served
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:29 AM

The state of Illinois is making it harder for people under the age of 21 to pass for legal alcohol purchasers. Driver's licenses for those under 21 will be arranged "vertically," instead of the standard "horizontal" design. So changing that birth year won't be enough to get you past the scrutiny of alcohol sellers.

The rule of verticality has already been adopted by some other states. Authorities expect that this device will eliminate underage drinking in Illinois. (OK, maybe not. Vice Squad supports enforcing underage alcohol restrictions, at least if the punishments were not overly severe -- and if the drinking age were itself rational. I lean towards an age of 19 for beer and wine, and 21 for harder stuff, but a voluntary licensing system for those 19 or above might be helpful, too. People of sufficient age could choose whether to be licensed to purchase alcohol or not; then, employers and insurance companies could discriminate on the basis of possession of a drinker's license, if they so chose.)

Apologies for neglecting Vice Squad recently. I have now returned to Chicago, though if things go according to plan, I will be out of town quite a bit over the next month. I continue to cling to the myth that come February, sanity will be restored.

Labels: alcohol, driving, Illinois, teens

 
Trib on Vice
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:14 PM

Sorry for the blogging lapse! Alas, I am leaving town shortly, if all goes well, so I am afraid that blogging will be in the light-to-non-existent range for a few days.

But first, some stories from today's Chicago Tribune (registration required):

(1) FCC Does In Private Ryan: It is a potential violation of FCC guidelines to air the violence and profanity in the film, "Saving Private Ryan," before 10 PM. The movie is slated to be shown tonight on ABC, in conjunction with Veteran's Day. But some ABC affiliates will not be broadcasting SPR, to avoid the risk of fines. They asked the FCC to clear the film in advance (i.e., to promise no fines for broadcasting it), but the FCC wouldn't take such a radical step -- despite the fact that the movie has been aired, uncut, in 2000 and in 2001, without any fines, though someone was moved to file a complaint. Vice Squad has repeatedly indicated that the "respond after the fact to complaints" approach of the FCC is poor public policy; I am shocked that the FCC hasn't altered its methods accordingly. Incidentally, it looks like lucky viewers in Des Moines, Sioux City, and Lincoln (NE) will get to see "a music program and the TV movie 'Return to Mayberry.'" Come to think of it, Return to Mayberry is a pretty good description of the FCC's renewed vigilance.

(2) NASCAR has announced that it will begin to accept sponsorships from hard-liquor companies. Turns out that NASCAR got its start, sort of, thanks to the liquor trade. Much of the impetus to "soup-up" regular cars came from a desire to outrun anti-moonshine agents.

(3) A 23-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department is now facing 10 or more years in prison, plus a slew of asset forfeitures, after being found guilty yesterday of charges related to the theft of cocaine from a police evidence warehouse. The officer's explanation for his surprising wealth was that it came from gambling winnings, but casino records didn't back that up.

(4) In a story from November 7, the Coast Guard announced that its cocaine haul for the fiscal year 2003/04 amounted to more than 37 tons. It isn't clear how much of that was seized from the evidence warehouse in Chicago.

(5) "Secret research conducted by cigarette company Philip Morris in the 1980s showed that second-hand smoke was highly toxic, yet the company suppressed the finding during the next two decades, according to an online article being published Thursday by The Lancet, a British medical journal."

(6) Philip Morris is also arguing before the Illinois Supreme Court to try to get that little matter of a $10.1 billion judgment against it thrown out. I guess they just picked a lawyer at random from the yellow pages, but surprisingly, it turned out to be former Illinois governor James Thompson.

Labels: alcohol, driving, FCC, Illinois, indecency, litigation, tobacco

 
Chicago Suburbs That Have "Decriminalized" Pot
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:12 PM

There has been a lot of talk lately in Chicago about ticketing (as opposed to arresting) people who are found to have a little bit of marijuana on them. Today's Chicago Tribune has one of those front-page-on-Monday stories (registration required) about some Chicago suburbs that have gone the ticketing route for some time now. The article starts by telling the tale of a driver and two passengers who were stopped in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette for a "minor traffic violation":

A Wilmette officer searched the vehicle and discovered a small bag of marijuana--about one joint's worth--in the glove compartment.

If a Chicago police officer had stopped them, they could have been arrested, fingerprinted and assigned a court date.

Instead, each received the equivalent of a parking ticket, a $100 fine under a village ordinance regarding the possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana.

While the driver is happy that he didn't get arrested, what gets my goat is that no one in the article mentions how absurd the search was in the first place. Presumably this was a "consent search", where at some point during the discussion of the minor violation the officer asked for permission to search the car, and the permission was granted (as it almost always is). Why would the officer bother searching if there's just a small fine for marijuana possession? To concatenate my presumptions, I'll suggest that what the officer was hoping for was to find a significant pile of some illegal drug, i.e., to make a "major drug bust." So here are a few folks driving home after dinner, who aren't actually doing anything wrong (the traffic stop was probably pretextual, undertaken solely to yield a search), who nevertheless end up having their automobile rifled through by an armed agent of the law. This scenario has become so common that no one in today's story even bothers to point out the irrationality of the entire episode. These unwarranted (literally) assaults on our freedoms seem to be accepted as part of the background, as Just The Way Things Are. Such searches should be intolerable, yet somehow, they are tolerated, and we are even pleased to find that we are "only" fined when some unapproved substance turns up.

Decrimwatch comments on the Trib story, too.

Labels: driving, drugs, Illinois, search

 
Zero Tolerance for Driving Under the Influence
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:12 PM

Since August, the blood alcohol content that will lead to a per se violation of driving while intoxicated laws in Croatia is any positive number. You'd better register .00, or you are a drunk driver. This means that you cannot safely have a glass of wine at dinner, if you will be driving home later. The law is likely to be relaxed, however:

The Croatian government is considering amendments to its new law on drinking and driving, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader recently confirmed. The measure, introduced in August, reduced the blood alcohol content limit for drivers from 0.05 per cent to zero. It has triggered significant opposition from restaurant and hotel owners, who say it is hurting business, as well as from Catholic priests, who argue that they are now effectively barred from traveling between churches to celebrate Mass.

The priests had asked to be exempted before the law went into effect, but their prayers, er, requests, went for naught.

Labels: alcohol, driving, Europe, zero tolerance

 
Get Low-Mileage, Late-Model Cars Cheap --- From US Customs!
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:52 PM

And they can be trusted just as much as any used car dealer. The catch here is that, well, the cars that are auctioned off come into Customs' hands via confiscation. So? Well, in some cases, it seems, the drugs that the previous owner had stashed in the car are not removed prior to the auction. So? Well, when the drugs are discovered, the new, innocent owner might have to spend a month or even a year in a Mexican prison. But the car is cheap! What do you expect for 1500 bucks, a drug-free vehicle?

There are claims (far from proven, however) that the drugs were not discovered because finding drugs involves damaging the car -- and damaged cars would not bring in as much cash at the auction. Thanks to Overlawyered for the pointer.

Labels: driving, drugs, search