http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/02/18/his-life-had-purpose Comments On: His Life Had Purpose by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Sat, 18 May 2013 15:45:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
I'd like to share it with a friend who needs her head screwed on "straight" regarding same sex anything and everything.

Thanks.

DG
Posted by d.jonathan.g]]> Sun, 05 May 2013 21:41:03 -0700 The Stranger
That's just it: if you're driving erratically enough that the cops notice and pull you over, there IS no difference. Regardless of how much you've had to drink, if you're driving erratically, you are unable to operate the vehicle safely, and you are putting lives in danger. How can you not see that?
Posted by inconcvbl]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:26:29 -0800 The Stranger
You can blow a .04 by just having ingested bread earlier in the day. Maybe you're gluten free?
Posted by ortolan]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:01:20 -0800 The Stranger
I'm sure she felt fine to drive. That's what leads every impaired person to get behind the wheel. But she was wrong, and learned that lesson at the expense of an innocent life.
Posted by inconcvbl]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:58:53 -0800 The Stranger
The .08 "legal limit" does NOT mean that anything below that point is legal and everything above it is not. Impaired driving is impaired driving, whether you're blowing a .16, or stoned (which would be a 0.0 BAC by the way), or hopped up on no-doze.

It's the danger you're causing that is illegal, ortolan. And the legal limit of .08% only means that no further proof of your impairment is required by law enforcement. It does NOT mean that you're not impaired if you blow less than that.

Proof of that last concept seems to be in the fact that you were pulled over at all on your ill-fated trip to J&theB. The police aren't mind-readers, and there's also no radar gun for BAC. Might you have been driving in a way that indicated impaired ability?

I realize that getting a DUI sucks, but even you acknowledge that you weren't completely sober. Doesn't it follow that you might reconsider your definition of "under the influence," instead of blaming cops who wouldn't have had a reason to cite you if you hadn't been drinking and then gotten into your car?

And as for your other points, well. How many times have I "had a glass of wine at dinner and then drove home?" You mean, since I was nearly killed by a driver who did, in her mind, that same thing? ZERO. Zero times.

And I'm sorry, but "lots and lots of people drive after consumed a drink or two, you all know it and I find that level of consumption to be no problem at all" is just a longer way of saying "Everyone else is doing it." And it still doesn't mean it's safe, and it still doesn't mean it's okay.

I get that you're okay with it, just as you probably get that I'm not. But which one of us has the DUI?
Posted by inconcvbl]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:50:05 -0800 The Stranger
And no I don't drive after drinking. I just figure it's easier not to drive at all because it's just way too expensive.
Posted by ortolan]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:40:02 -0800 The Stranger
That's the way it is. But lots and lots of people drive after consumed a drink or two, you all know it and I find that level of consumption to be no problem at all. This is what I was referring to.
Posted by ortolan]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:28:40 -0800 The Stranger To the mayor and people of Indy, Thank You for your tribute to these fine men.
To the families and friends of Timothy and Cody, no words can heal your pain but know that their lives had the most sacred of purpose, to save lives. Know that we are all less for having lost them and more for having learned about them.
To the Diane Medleys of the world, it is you who need to find purpose in your lives. Going through life as bigots is not why you are here.
To Dan, thank you for giving Timothy and Cody such a meaningful eulogy.
Posted by kwodell]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:23:33 -0800 The Stranger
When I was 19, a girl from my home town left a party, drunk (everyone else was doing it!), drove 40 miles without incident, and then came around a blind corner at 70 MPH on the wrong side of the road and hit me head-on.

She very nearly ended my life.

It was her first offense. She "wasn't that drunk (BA % 1.6)." She suffered only minor injuries.

20 years later, I am struggling to recover from PTSD caused by that accident. If you want to read about the kind of damage you and "everyone else" who gets behind the wheel after having a few drinks can cause in an innocent person's life, I invite you to come check out my blog: http://kate-thegirlwholived.blogspot.com…

Be sure to start with the first post, so you can read about the accident, the injuries, the permanent damage, the years of struggle that followed. THAT'S the reality of driving drunk, ortolan. Not "revenue."

Those laws aren't in place to inconvenience you and "everyone else" too stupid to walk to fucking Jack in the Box at midnight. They're there to protect the rest of us from your poor decisions.

And answer me this: after that $10k and the year of your life (a WHOLE year? Really? Poor baby! Try 20, and then get back to me), I bet you make sure you're sober before you get behind the wheel now, no matter how badly you want that Jumbo Jack. Am I right?

Sounds like an effective measure, to me.
Posted by inconcvbl]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:53:46 -0800 The Stranger
As always, if you really want to kill someone and get away with it, use a car.
Posted by TLjr]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:37:30 -0800 The Stranger never driven after having a drink.

It's incredibly easy to not get a DUI citation. Incredibly, absurdly, stupidly easy.
Posted by Zuulabelle]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:26:13 -0800 The Stranger Posted by lepome]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 09:38:25 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Helix]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:08:52 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Clara T]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:24:18 -0800 The Stranger
YET

Everyone does it. Has a drink or two and drives home.

What the law and police need to focus on are egregious offenders. Seriously fucked up people. But the revenue is what it's all about. A DUI will take up a year of your life and $10k at least and I am talking just going a mile or so to go to Jack in the Box at midnight. The DUI I got would have been a warning 15 years ago.

Driving in a revenue hungry country isn't worth it if you drink a drink or two.
Posted by ortolan]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:01:15 -0800 The Stranger
She was sentenced to 17 years.
Posted by clashfan]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:55:08 -0800 The Stranger I have a friend who works in auto insurance claims. He deals first hand with people involved in - and injured and sometimes killed by - car accidents, and has for 20 yrs. The number one cause of car accidents, BY FAR, is not alcohol, but something totally, tragically avoidable: driver inattention. Even if the young woman hadn't been inebriated (if she was) it's just about a guarantee that she was too focused on listening to/paying attention to her GPS to be fully aware of what was around her.

People do dumb shit all the time, yet most of us don't pay for it by accidently/needlessly killing two people. Young people, particularly young males, are involved in and responsible for more car accidents than any other group save the very elderly, whose reaction time is too slow. It's carnage out there - something like 40,000 people killed every year in the US in car accidents - and in nearly every case it was avoidable if people had just woken the fuck UP and paid attention.

Also, anyone who tells you they had "one drink" or one and a half, is lying. It's known as a cliche even, amongst cops and insurance adjusters: along the lines of 'the check's is in the mail'.


Posted by Velvetbabe]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 03:37:20 -0800 The Stranger Posted by sebastian_j]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:37:24 -0800 The Stranger Posted by stilettov]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:30:23 -0800 The Stranger
Sorry to burst your bubble there, but even if she was going out of her way to kill him, she's not going to serve any real time. It just doesn't happen with car collisions, no matter how reckless their driving is.

@Dan: See, to some people, the only purpose you or I could ever possibly serve in life, nevermind society, is to make babies. Where's this bitch from again? Some cow town in Ohio? Is she surrounded by people who live out their lives working in the meat packing plant? That would go a long way to explaining a few things.
Posted by gromm]]> Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:54:16 -0800 The Stranger
Posted by Just Plain Joe]]> Mon, 18 Feb 2013 22:36:08 -0800 The Stranger
Posted by Just Plain Joe]]> Mon, 18 Feb 2013 22:34:37 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Mischa Vainburg]]> Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:59:23 -0800 The Stranger
@18 -- I was thinking a ninja assassin.
Posted by this guy I know in Spokane]]> Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:28:05 -0800 The Stranger Posted by TheRain]]> Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:22:07 -0800 The Stranger