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OT: drunk driver - tried to do my civic duty

J

JML755

Well-known Member
last nite on the way home on a busy interstate, saw a guy weaving in front of me going slow (~45 mph). Called State police. They said they'd have their cars ahead watch for him. He must have passed me up somehow because about 5 miles later in an urban portion of the freeway, I saw him again, this time he swerved onto the left shoulder and came darn near to slamming into the median wall. Called 911 again, gave them the description, plate #. Meanwhile this guy was all over the 3 lanes, sudden lane changes, slamming on his brakes, almost hitting cars, median, etc. He got off the freeway and I called 911 again because now he was in local jurisdiction. I stayed on the line while he headed South on a main road towards Detroit city limits. He was stopping at green lights, going up over the curb, etc. I was transferred several times because he would cross city boundaries. Finally, he pulled into a shopping center on the Detroit border. He knew I was following him. On the line with Detroit police, the dispatcher wanted the location of where he was at. I said "Meijer shopping center, 8 mile and Woodward". Him: "What's the address?". :roll: I told him he was parked in front of a Foot Locker store. I DON'T KNOW THE ADDRESS. Him: "oh, he's parked, we can't do anything". Now, I know for a fact in Michigan that you are DUI if you're in a car with the keys in your possession and drunk. Don't have to be moving.

After a few minutes, I saw a private security guard in a car. I pointed the guy out who had just staggered into a McDonald's restaurant. She said "oh, at least he had the sense to pull over". She didn't seem concerned in the least that there was a drunk driver in her parking lot.

I left the lot, saw a Detroit cop car on the street, flashed my lights and honked my horn as he drove into the parking lot. I followed him, figuring that he had gotten the call. He wouldn't pull over for me, just kept slowly driving through the lot. I finally pulled up next to him and rolled my window down. By now, I was pretty frustrated. I told him the guy was drunk, couldn't even walk straight, pointed out the truck and he said that they couldn't do anything about it. :shock: I told him that if they just waited a couple of minutes, the guy would probably come out once he knew I was gone and they could get him. Cop said "ok, thank you". I watched as the cop drove over toward the McDonalds, turned in an aisle and drove away out of the parking lot.

I just left shaking my head at their apathy toward the situation. When I got home my wife said I was lucky I didn't get a ticket for flashing my lights at the cop or pulling up next to him in the opposing lane in the shopping center. :lol: And you know, she's probably right.
 
go down to t tales,,read rr lunds story,,and hes gonna read yours and shake his head more,,guess
they wait till some one innocent gets killed?
 
Technically, they are right, they can't do anything. Unless the officer actually witnesses the operation of the vehicle or catches them in the vehicle with the keys, it's your word against theirs and any rookie lawyer can get it thrown out in court.

You said yourself the guy got out of the vehicle and went into the Mcdonalds. That's what the dispatcher figured would happen, and why they said they couldn't do anything about it. By the time the cops got there he would be sitting in the Mcdonalds, not driving. Any evidence that he was operating the vehicle is circumstantial and would not hold water in court.
 
I read an article that said half the fatalities are caused by
drunk drivers and the other half by speeders. Getting a
speeding ticket doesn't seem as bad as getting a ticket for
driving under the influence, yet both kill about the same
number of people.

Speeding semis in construction area on interstate running
through town have killed 7 people year to date. Semis can't
stop as fast as cars. Semis don't slow down for cars that
slowed or stopped at construction site.
All semis run into the back of stopped or slowed cars. Usually
the car is pushed into the back of another stopped semi. No
excuses for that.

So your post proves what article says. We hate drink drivers,
yet see nothing wrong with speeders at construction area that
not only kills families in car, it also kills construction
workers.
 
As I was reading this I was thinking the same thing your wife was. Your lucky you did not get in trouble ! Seems anymore no good deed goes unpunished.
 
Here guy got a ticket, had been drinking
was asleep in car and keys were present.
That's all they needed.
 
yup, I know for a fact that cops sit outside bars at night near closing time waiting for people to head out. Guy I know was pulled over like that, lost his license for a year. Like sms said, don't need to be driving. Guy I work with, his son was drunk, got into an argument with his wife, went out to his car to sleep it off and get away from her. Cops came up, woke him up, keys were on him, DUI, lost his license for a year, he was a truck driver, lost his job.
 

For every story like this I can give you a story where the police officers did everything they could do to catch the guy, BTDT! I can guarantee that if a cop had been running red lights and siren to catch up to the guy and had had an accident many of the same people complaining about the apathy would be complaining about the cops actions. Sometimes you can't win.
 

When he got out of the car and went into a business he was home free. That's the law everywhere I know of. It is not sufficient to charge DUI if you are just drunk and have keys. If it were not so then every drunk in a bar would be subject to arrest just because they have a car in the lot.

Detroit really doesn't have the money to to have enough officers to invest much in chasing drunks - they need all the help they can get trying to put gangs out of business. When my daughter was on a forward operating base in Iraq the joke was that she was safer than if she was in Detroit or Chicago, and that's the truth. In areas like Detroit a drunk driver is akin to a jaywalker in other places - just not enough officers to handle everything.
 
On who is killing whom on the roadways, don't forget the main head on crash culprit where the offender usually gets killed: TEXTING.

The news, in their "politically correct, don't say anything to hurt anybody's feelings, don't indicate that anyone should take responsibility
for their actions philosophy" says nothing about the obvious. All they say is that vehicle A became "out of control" (on a 2 lane, paved, low
traffic, country road, in broad daylight, in clear weather......per the picture supplied with the article), and wound up in the oncoming lane of
vehicle B, (an 18 wheeler) which just happened to be there at the time).
 
I'm going to pick this post apart a bit, because it's very easy to do. You state VERY MATTER OF FACTLY, "all semis run into the back of stopped or slowed cars" We both know that isn't remotely true. 1 out of every 100000 semis run into the back of stopped of slowed cars is a much more accurate statement, but I'm probably still exaggerating.

Further that, if you want to talk statistics, lets do so. I'm no statistician, but I can tell you that speeding kills less as a percentage then drunk driving. How many people drive drunk? Approx 1,500,000 million tickets for DUI every year in the US. 10,075 killed every year in the US. Compare that to speeding tickets. 41,000,000 per year in the US, while 35,000 die altogether, INCLUDING DUI's. Approx 10% were pedesterians. That means non-DUI deaths is around 25,000 per year. Likely less than 1/2 are speeding, which means speeding kills 1/2 of those, and DUI kills the other half. As a statistic, the chance of a drunk driver killing someone is 0.67%. The chance of a speeder killing someone is 0.03%. That's 22 time more likely. Granted not all speeders are caught, but by no means are all drunk drivers caught either.

To take that one more step, it's difficult to say that speeding was the only reason a person was killed. It could be a variety of factors that resulted in a death. The vast majority of DUI deaths are caused basically because the driver was drunk. Even that can be skewed though, because someone could run in front of a drunk driver, driver is found to be drunk, and it's his or her fault.

I think what the police really have to go after is cell phone use. I don't believe it's as bad as drunk driving, but it takes your eyes off the road, and that isn't going to end well in the long run. I TRULY don't believe that talking and driving tends to be a problem, but anything that gets you looking at your screen, like texting, is a problem. If you're going to talking on your phone a lot, get something that you can talk hands-free.
 
What you guys should do is take a little time away from the tractor forums and look up your state laws. They do vary state to state. Lot of the time the politicians pass a law only to have it overturned in a courtroom, not because someone sued over the law but because in hearing a case like a DUI a judge rules the law invalid.

Rick
 
One thing, I absolutely agree with you. Now next you need to go buy
yourself a damn good dash cam. Unfortunately the cops have gotten so
touchyfeely lately and the laws and courts are so pervrted that our
country is in a death spiral. I just got done spending $3000.oo to get
my butt out of a bind because of preferential laws cause I am male
and the wrong color.
 
Here in mid Mn. my son got a DWI sitting in the passenger seat waiting for the designated driver that was using the washroom.
 
Tell your store to those kill on I 70.
All died because they were rearend by a semi didn't slow down at construction site. Last semi driver went to jail, under the influence of drugs.
 
(quoted from post at 06:58:21 08/03/17) Here in mid Mn. my son got a DWI sitting in the passenger seat waiting for the designated driver that was using the washroom.
Click to expand...

Take that one to trial. We need more info. Was the key in the ignition? I bet it was. If not, did the passenger have the key in his possession? Still, this is one I would take to trial depending on where the key was during the stop. If the key wasn't in, around, or near the car or passenger, this one should be not guilty. But, it's always a risk.
 
Amen, sir. Not to veer OT, but until the TEXTERS are vilified like the drunks have been, TEXTING etc. will continue to be a rampant problem. Like you say it is all about hurting feelings, entitlement, etc. and not about the logic of how much certain activities impair a driver.
 
" I TRULY don't believe that talking and driving tends to be a problem, but ...." Yes it IS a problem! Just observe. I see people talking & driving all the time & their mind is NOT on the driving. Otherwise why are they going 15 to 20 MPH below the surrounding traffic? They are not paying attention!
 
You did the right thing by trying to save someones life whether his or the victim of his actions. As a citizen and a
human we need to care about our fellow man. It is not your job to be the judge and you opted to let the authorities
(police) do that. They dropped the ball. but Thank you for giving a daxn and making an effort.
 
They probably had a lot more important things to do. The mayor/governor probably had them on the other side of town catching those menace to society dangerous thugs that don't wear seat belts.
 
George I agree with you on peoples driving in construction sites. I make my living working in construction. Presently we are paving a section of the NY State thruway at night. 2 pavers and traffic has one lane to get past us. It's 2 lanes wide plus the shoulders. I am operating what we call a transfer buggy. Trucks dump into me and I fill the paver. To operate this piece of equipment I sit 90 degrees to the machine so I can look forward and backward without having to turn around. The seat hangs off the side of the machine at least 2 feet toward the lane of moving traffic. Pretty scary stuff at 2 am with cars and large trucks zipping past you at 55 and less than 8 feet away ! All it would take is one split second and....
 
Years ago on my way home from work a car was turning left and had to wait on traffic to clear. The
car in front of me was stopped. I stopped and looked in mirror to
make sure the the car behind me stopped, which it did. However
I noticed a woman in a Toyota, with a car full of kids, rammed
into the Corvette that was stopped behind me. She was yelling
at her kids and not looking in front of her. Big crash, woman in
corvette went to hospital, whip lash. I saw it all unfold and
had to stay for cops because the corvette bumped into me. No
damage to my car or me just a bump.

Do you know what kind of car you get when a Toyota rams into
the rear of a Corvette? Answer, a Toy-Let. That's what the
cracked body of Corvette looked like, crappy. Distracted driving isn't always caused by a cell phone.
geo
 
Here is an article that disputes what you say. It says only 1 in 20 crashes are linked to cell phones. I can't find any stats on number of fatalities caused by cell phones.
Please post your link to texting causing so many accidents and fatalities.

My link is from CBS news.
cbs news
 
If you are referring to me, here is more info. They were at a wedding so he was drinking but she was not. The car was cold as it was in the winter. He started the engine to let it warm up while waiting in the passenger seat for her to use the rest room. Deputies got there before she did & had him in the squad car & she barely got there in time to see where he went.
 
Nothing to do with speeding and everything to do with not paying attention to the road. Whether the 40 ton semi hits a car at 40 mph or 55 isn't going to make much difference. Either way there's enough inertia to pancake the car. (not to make light of the situation). I feel for anyone involved in that type of situation, but speeding really isn't the problem here.
 
451 cubes,

Your posting resembles my thinking. I thought I remembered a survey saying texting or fiddling with a phone was 10 times as deadly as driving drunk. I thought it was a british survey, unsure of that.

Also, let's redefine drunk. Keep lowering the BAC until you have enough to propagate your agenda.

I say a 85 year old man may have reduced reaction times similar to a 21 year old buck with a few beers. So, really what is it? Drinking, or a reduced capability. Perhaps the patrols should target churches on a sunday morning, for those that have an "impairment".

D.
 
Dennis,
Yeah - seems to me we were on the same side of the fence on this subject awhile back.

It is mentioned above that statistics show few accidents are related to phones, but think about this - When one has been drinking, and is over the limit, and is then in an accident, there is proof positive of the drinking by testing. Police will discern this, and you will go to jail - whether the wreck is your fault or not. Statistic logged. When someone is looking down, reading their phone, and swerves in to a nice family in oncoming traffic, no one drags them to jail.... The person is not going to offer up they were looking in to their lap reading a text from loverboy just prior to their Kia crossing the center line and hitting YOU head on. In most instances there is likely no way to prove using a phone was the root cause. You know they say "no" if asked if they were using the phone.

It is just infuriating to me to see SO MANY people looking down, and all over the road as they drive. 90% of the communicating they do is likely useless drivel. It is just as much of an utter lack of respect for OTHER PEOPLE'S safety as drinking and driving. IMHO
 
Been years since I was there. Wife's sister used to live on 12 mile and dought things have gotten any better. Do nothing probably reconized his drinking-snorting friend. And here at home renter was at privatly owned fishing club setting in car sleeping off one and got picked for it. He was a member of the fishing club so he had the right to be on the grounds where he was sleeping in his Yugo.
 
I followed a FedEx van Tuesday for 35 miles and I called 911 too. He was all over the road running 40 mph to 65 mph(55 speed zone). We went through two counties and three towns and I never saw a cop.
 
State cops agree speeding is the problem. So does the other cops. Extra cops at construction site to slow everyone.
Ticked a guy doing 75 in a 45.
Even city cops patrolling interstate that runs through town.
Everyone agrees there is a problem except for you.
 
Thank you for your concern and effort into getting him off the road.

The man who got me into antique tractors was killed by a drunk driver. Him and 3 other buddies were on motorcycles on their way back from sturgis when a drunk driver tried to pass a semi in a construction zone on the interstate. Two way traffic on one side of the interstate. When he went to pass they were right there and that was it.

People had noticed his erratic driving 45 minutes prior to the crash and had been calling the state patrol and then local authorities when he pulled off the interstate into a gas station to buy more alcohol. No one was able to get a cop to him in time. In the end he will serve 7 to 7 1/2 years for taking 4 lives.

Sucks.
 

Just want to note that they were in Iowa, 45 minutes from home when this happened and none of them had traces of alcohol or drugs in their system at the time of the accident. (they all were tested as part of evidence for the trial) I get the stigma of what happens in Sturgis.
 
If nothing in his system could ha have had a medical problen as a slight stroke or something else. Not condoning drinking or drugs but if had none in him I would think a medical problem.
 
(quoted from post at 07:02:10 08/04/17) If nothing in his system could ha have had a medical problen as a slight stroke or something else. Not condoning drinking or drugs but if had none in him I would think a medical problem.
Click to expand...

I believe the BIKERS, the ones who were killed, did not have anything in their systems.

The guy who hit and killed them was probably loaded for bear.

Unfortunately cops can't TELEPORT. It takes them time to respond, and by the time they get to point A where the drunk driver was reported, he has moved on to point B. Maybe it's further down the same road, maybe he's made several turns by now.

At that point it becomes a matter of how many taxpayer dollars do you want to spend throwing out the dragnet and doing a street by street search for this guy.

If the police issued an APB for every reported drunk driver and rolled all available units to canvas the area, you'd be screaming bloody murder at the "waste" of taxpayer dollars!
 
(quoted from post at 16:07:50 08/04/17)
(quoted from post at 07:02:10 08/04/17) If nothing in his system could ha have had a medical problen as a slight stroke or something else. Not condoning drinking or drugs but if had none in him I would think a medical problem.
Click to expand...

I believe the BIKERS, the ones who were killed, did not have anything in their systems.

The guy who hit and killed them was probably loaded for bear.

Unfortunately cops can't TELEPORT. It takes them time to respond, and by the time they get to point A where the drunk driver was reported, he has moved on to point B. Maybe it's further down the same road, maybe he's made several turns by now.

At that point it becomes a matter of how many taxpayer dollars do you want to spend throwing out the dragnet and doing a street by street search for this guy.

If the police issued an APB for every reported drunk driver and rolled all available units to canvas the area, you'd be screaming bloody murder at the "waste" of taxpayer dollars!
Click to expand...

Sorry I didn't make that clearer, but the motorcyclist were all "clean".

There was actually someone following this guy for almost 45 minutes, but yes I do understand that it is almost impossible to get someone off the road because there are so few law enforcement out there and such a large area to cover.
 
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