The drink-drive war is won!

[doc]

The drink drive war hasn't started in the courts. Thats where the problem with drink driving is.
Cmon when people have 18 drink drive convictions and as many convictions for driving while disquailified.

Maybe if they lessened the number of checkpoints operation, but when they had one and you failed you lose with effective bigtime penalities.

[neels]

I have no problem with being detained and searched when driving, the imposition is minimal compared to the possible outcomes if drunk drivers were free to go about their business with a reduced fear of being caught.

It's no different from being stopped at the post earthquake police checkpoint on the way out to where I live, if it's keeping out the riff raff that would otherwise be causing problems, then I can live with a minor inconvenience in the interests of the good of the community in general.

[Ferkletastic]

30 seconds out of your life every now and then a massive imposition?

Get over yourself.

[MSTRS:Me]

I gather from the OP that he is concerned because the message appears to be getting through that drinking/driving is a no-no with (only) 0.6% of 31,000 stoppees being over the limit - what was the figure 5/10/20 years ago? - then the Pollies, in an effort to keep the flow of fine dollars coming, will move the goalposts again.
Valid concern IMO. But then again, most people were aware that a blitz was intended, so they'd make a special effort to be good just for that period.
No claims can be made that the problem of drink/driving is sorted until the drinking culture itself in this country is sorted. There's no sign of that being anytime soon.

[p.dath]

Could you post a URL to the orignal story in the NZHerald?

[Pixie]

Outstandiing news today from from the front lines of the war against drink-drivers. In a massive 2 days blitz where over 31,000 (31,777 to be exact) citizens were detained and searched by officers of the state, over 99% of them (99.4% to be exact) were found to be in full compliance with the nations drink-drive laws.

This heralds a new age of responsible behaviour by the ciitizenry of New Zealand and must, at long last, force official acknowledgement that the current, if onerous, laws and policing methods have finally achieved all that they were enacted to do. Hopefully this will see a marked easing in state surveillance of law-abiding citizens and a reduction in impediments to going about their lawful business.

What a great day

Is your name George W Bush? (mission accomplished)

[p.dath]

Outstandiing news today from from the front lines of the war against drink-drivers. In a massive 2 days blitz where over 31,000 (31,777 to be exact) citizens were detained and searched by officers of the state, over 99% of them (99.4% to be exact) were found to be in full compliance with the nations drink-drive laws.

As much as I want drink drivers off the roads, I find it disheartening that 99.4% of citizens lots their right to go freely about their business for a problem with 0.6% of the population. And chances are, only 0.1% of those stopped are probably going to actually have something done in court.

I am very disheartened with the courts. I would prefer those doing nothing wrong could go freely about their business, and those that cross the line and kill and injure face a severe penalty (at least 7 years in prison). I would prefer out soceity operated at these two extremes.

I would like it to be more like Germany, were the penalties are so severe that people think twice about taking the risk. And those that do it a second time loose the opportunity to get behind the wheel for a very long time.

And while I am in full ramble mode, I'd also like our licence system to be more like Germany. Where it costs a lot of money, but most importantly, time to get your licence. You have to accumulate a lot of hours with a certified instructor in all different kinds of driving conditions before you get your licence.

The thing is, if you know it is going to take hundreds of hours of driving time with an instructor to get your licence you tend to value it a lot - and you know the process of repeating that to get your licence is going to be hard.

[MSTRS:Me]

Besides, 0.6% of 31000 is still 185 potential death/mayhem causers off the road. At least briefly.

[Banditbandit]

Might sound dramatic but if I have to go through the odd checkpoint every now and again in order for the Police to potentially pull at least 1 drunk off the road, then it's worth while to me.

While I'm generally with AD354 on this one - I think that citizens going about their lawful business should be able to do so without interferance from the state - I'm also against drunk drivers.

I am prepared to give up a short piece of time at random checkpoints - to be stopped by the law even tho' I 'm doing nothing wrong - if it catches the bastards ... I have a vested interest - my own life - in getting them off the road. We're not yet ready o do away with checkpoints .. and I'm yet to be convinced we ever will be. Even in Muslim countries where alcohol is very restircted the law still catches drunk drivers.

AD354 is right - where do we draw the line? On this one I agree to be stopped - on other issuses I will not be so lenient ... I object to the power of the state and I object to enforcement officers of all types grabbing power to monitor and interfere in my life.

So Scumdog ... Most of the time you can leave me alone .. on this one issue alone I'll let you stop and search with no good reason ...

[bogan]

also, it was quite a blitz, I wonder if any drunk drivers found out and made other plans? If you take the confidence interval of the sampled data, I would imagine you'd include 1%, you saying the cops shouldn't be able to do anything about 1%ers unless it doesn't inconvenience anyone else?

I've only ever been checkpointed once, at like 11am in a commercial vehicle stop, dunno why it was only commercial vehicles though. So I'm probly getting off lightly with regard to my rights being violated. TBH as long as they are stopping everybody theres no discrimination there and I'm ok with it, if they just start pulling up shifty looking buggers like myself, then I'd be more annoyed.

edit: another point is, the cops are often reffered to as revenue gatherers, if they don't catch fuck all drivers in a checkpoint night, they won't make fuck all, so it must be for our safety after all! better there than on the end of a passing lane with a radar I say

[Genestho]

You could also argue that those leaving pubs or wherever, were texting mates to avoid the checkpoints?
So those that had nothing to be concerned about went through.

[avgas]

here is hoping they do the same again in 6 months......before they get back on the road again .....

[phill-k]

I enjoy reading these sorts of posts to see peoples diversity of opinion, and sometimes wonder why and from where ones opinion develops.

As regard checkpoints, these are hardly personal searches, you speak towards an electronic device that either passes or fails you, no information is gathered unless you fail. Seldom do they even bother with WOF & Registration.

We will always require this sort of policing, NZer's and I would suppose other nationalities suffer from the complex of it's a great law / idea but it doesn't apply to me, protect me from others indiscretions but when I ignore the law, all will be all right.

As an example the new cellphone law, at present we have a lawyer in Wellington who was using his phone, which is against the law, appealing his conviction by his peers because of due process. He states that the conviction was unlawful, and wishes to overturn it in the high court. Driving whilst using a cellphone has been proved to be dangerous as has drink driving, its unlawful, but he is a man, a lawyer, who specialises in driving issues, who blatantly believes that it is ok for him to break this law. Having been caught, he now wishes to be excused, not because he didn't do the crime but he has the money to attempt to prove that on a technicality the conviction was unlawful.

Now before you start to argue that someone needs to hold the system to account, and you would be right, he has not denied using his phone, he was observed by the police officer to be holding it to his ear and then reaching across the steering wheel with his other hand to use the indicators, his technicality was the officer did not request to see his call register, the phone when stopped was found to be jammed between his thighs.

My point in all this, if the police continue with their checkpoints, and the courts continue with the underwhelming level of fines and punishments, then our present situation will continue, change any of these aspects for the better or worse, and the results will also change as we the public evaluate the risk to our behaviour. Third conviction, confiscation of the vehicle, and I don't care whether its your mothers or a rental companies, mandatory loss of license for 5 yrs, prison perhaps, and further penalties for any further offending. Until the courts start to support the police and impose penalties that have an effect, so the present status quo will exist, ramp them up or down and so also the effect on Joe citizen will change. Lets face it if the penalty for killing someone whilst driving under the influence, or perhaps just being in the wrong - I didn't see him as an example, was the same as if you had taken a gun and shot the person, how many convictions would it take before we all started to think about it a little more.
Just imagine if the police at said checkpoints had the facility to process you completely and if at that checkpoint they also had a compactor, and if it was your third conviction / second or perhaps even first, and the vehicle you were driving was driven straight into the compactor, how quickly would our attitudes change.
We would all be up in arms no doubt, but what if as a reality show, the police who have to deal with the results of drunken drivers also had a camera crew, and we all got to see what they deal with time after time on the 6pm news in all its graphic detail would we then be a little more sympathetic to increased police intrusion on our ability to travel in our own vehicles on our roads. It is because of this that I have the utmost respect for the likes of scumdog, and living in a small township north of whangarei I'm subject to regular screenings, in the last five years I would have been stopped perhaps 20 times and all during the day from as early as 7.30am on.

As an aside I attended a work conference in NSW a few yrs ago, it was over their queens birthday weekend and we had chartered a coach to do a wine tour. On returning to the Airport I got talking to the driver after one of our stops as he was beginning to get agitated, he was running out of drive time and did not want to get stuck in Sydney for his stand down time, but driving the Pacific Highway from Newcastle he was religiously sticking to the speed limit as he stated that in NSW on a holiday weekend they doubled the demerit points, and as a commercial driver if you receive demerits they are automatically doubled anyway so that if he was caught doing 10km over the speed limit he would end up with 4 x the demerit points for that infringement which in one go would mean automatic loss of license and that the police would then make him cease driving on the spot. The effect was he simply kept to the speed limit.

The cost of breaching the law to this driver was such that he modified his behaviour, simple really, its just about finding the level at which the punishment or enforcement deter.

[phill-k]

My apologies I've written a bloody book

[avgas]

the phone when stopped was found to be jammed between his thighs.

Sounds like he just didn't want a vasectomy.......but also did not want kids.
This is perfectly legal.

driving the Pacific Highway from Newcastle he was religiously sticking to the speed limit as he stated that in NSW on a holiday weekend they doubled the demerit points, and as a commercial driver if you receive demerits they are automatically doubled anyway so that if he was caught doing 10km over the speed limit he would end up with 4 x the demerit points for that infringement which in one go would mean automatic loss of license and that the police would then make him cease driving on the spot. The effect was he simply kept to the speed limit

Alas I can openly say that while the penalties were severe during those times. You still have idiots on that road. I used to drive it every couple of days just over a year ago. Just like in NZ - the idiots still did stupid stuff. They didn't give a flying fuck how much in fines they would get.
It always used to leave me dumbstruck how the aussie family would pack up to go to Newy for the weekend, and do 140+kph on that road in their commodore (speed limit is110).
Sure its only 30kph, but would you risk your kids to save (pulls out calculator) roughly 20 minutes on your trip????