Ed,

It's not fair to purposefully misconstrue what Lapka meant since she's not a native English speaker. She's obviously referring to the choice being made once the bad decision to drive has already been made. She's not referring to any decision made prior to driving.

You're on your way home and thought you were fine when you left then you realize you weren't, or aren't now, ok to drive. If sleeping in your car results in jail it encourages you to drive drunk the rest of the way home.

VR,

I assume where you were sleeping in your car along with whether the car was running effect the outcome. Were you ever sleeping alongside the road w/ the car running and got off?

de captain,

I get what you're saying about lapka's post, but I profoundly hope that anyone realizing that there is any question about whether they are too intoxicated to drive defaults to staying off the road. I and most people I know use the number of drinks consumed as a guideline, not how we "feel" at any given moment, which is a problematic way of assessing one's ability to safely operate a motor vehicle. Especially now that a ride home is, for most of us, just a smartphone app away, people shouldn't have to make judgment calls like this after they're on the road, or at all for that matter. Just plan ahead and know how much you've consumed. Or plan on taking a ride service.

And yeah, I'm not usually by the side of the road with the motor running. Touche. Now I feel obscurely guilty about all the times I've been awakened by the police who must have had something better to do than determine that I'm not passed out or having some kind of heart attack.

El Sapo,

Best memory of your jail time? Worst?

Whatever method you use to assess your ability to drive it's open to error. Mistakes have been, and always will be made. Once the mistake has been made it doesn't make sense to then punish a person for following up a bad decision with a good decision. Punishing someone for sleeping in their car at that point is punishing a good decision.

They aren't being punished for sleeping in their car though. They are being punished because they drove while intoxicated immediately prior to pulling over and passing out.

Its not like they are double penalizing people. You dont get punished for driving drunk and then get an extra charge added for sleeping in the car while drunk. (at least not that I'm aware of - can't find any info about it online either)

It doesn't matter why they're being punished. It disincentives stopping if you've started.

From what I've seen on tv, there were some very rough characters in the tents. You prob owed the guy a beer for letting you stay in the cell.

Disagree.
Stopping and getting punished is still a much much better outcome for all parties involved than continuing to drive, killing someone, and getting an even harsher punishment.

I'm not seeing how it logically disincentives anything.

Let's try an easier one. You walk out of a bar and you've had too much to drink. Your only practical options are to sleep in your car or drive home. You make the right choice and sleep in your car. Should you be punished for that? Punishing people for sleeping in their cars disincentives people from doing it. Any time spent sleeping in your car while intoxicated is a good thing and should be encouraged, not punished.

re the debate there about sleeping in the car

I'll pull over and sleep if I'm getting sleepy. Of course I never leave the engine running. I've never been interrupted by the police.

I think it's kinda split up. The overnighters and weekenders in one area, the people who are there for extended time in another.

Arizona is serious about their DUI's(more places should be), so you get A LOT of those weekenders.

sweetie pie.....
That so doesn't trigger me .

And see what captain said. And I am sooooo sure that you understood perfectly well, what I mean. Although I definitely should be more precise with words and express my thoughts with less room for interpretation.

what accent am I supposed to be hearing in my head when I read this?

If you didn't hear her on speakpipe you really missed out.

No need to try to dumb it down.


Your argument fails because you are making the ridiculous assumption that the only 2 choices are driving drunk, or sleeping in the car drunk. That exact type of thinking is the problem imo. Those are never ever the only 2 options.

If you want to keep going the "let's try an easier one" route, how about this this one:


You're driving drunk and hit a pedestrian, but don't stop and keep driving for a few more miles.
Eventually you realize you are super tired and drunk and pull over to sleep.
The cops show up a few minutes later and arrest you. What crime(s) should you be charged with?

In your scenario it's a given that dui has taken place. In both of my scenarios it's impossible to prove that dui has taken place. In my second scenario a dui hasn't taken place.

Unless you want to argue that the act of sleeping in a car while drunk constitutes dui you can't make it a crime. Is anyone sleeping in a car while drunk committing a crime?

cs3, before i respond can you tell me if you're seriously not getting this (and can be swayed with further posting) or being willingly obtuse (and will simply double down on 'not seeing' it)?

I thought the entire premise of this discussion is that a person is in fact driving drunk, then pulls over to fall asleep.


Obviously I have no problem, and neither should law enforcement, with sleeping in a car in a parking lot with the car off when no drunk driving has taken place.

Just curious, if you're on the side of the road, asleep and intoxicated, are you saying that DUI cannot reasonably be proven?

Who watched your cat while you were in jail?

Yes.

Paging Howard!

They do have a problem with it though. Many people were charged and convicted of DUI for exactly that.

de cap,

fwiw Im not asking for your interpretation of the actual law.
Im asking if you believe there are any scenarios where it is reasonable to assume a person asleep and intoxicated on the side of the road, with no eyewitnesses, was driving drunk.

Yes, I know.
That is not the scenario I was arguing against though.

Of course I believe there are scenarios where it's reasonable to assume the person was dui. I also believe there are scenarios where it's reasonable to assume the person wasn't dui.

Given that both scenarios are possible coupled w/ the fact that they develop a bias I don't think cops should have the power to judge which scenario happened.

It kind of is though because there's no way to prove the difference between them.

Like I said, I was under the assumption that the premise of this derail is that the person WAS driving drunk, and then stopped.

I guess I misread somewhere along the line. My point is that simply stopping and going to sleep, after already driving drunk, should not give anyone a pass on the initial lapse of judgement.
A large % of people flat out admit to driving drunk in that situation anyway.

And I agree that law enforcement probably shouldn't be given the power to make that call, but I suppose that's the point of our legal system - which admittedly breaks down in many situations like this.

What is achieved by not giving a pass?

I mean, I understand your point. And I wonder if you do get mine:

We as a society would want to encourage people to stop driving drunķ. The best situation is that they don't start at all. If they started we want to encourage them to stop . Or?

Punishing them exactly in the moment when they stopped, actually getting them caught only because they stopped achieves the opposite.