sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

with the second statement it could be argued that its only his opinion that he could handle a high performance car at high speed

SteveScooby

iTrader: (2)

I vaguely remember reading about a case where a couple had gone for a picnic and walk out in the hills somewhere, the bloke was meant to be driving so his wife/girlfriend had a few drinks.

The bloke then fell over, badly breaking his leg so they were effecively stranded in the middle of no where. She decided to drive his car to hospital and was then charged with drink driving.

Basically the ruling was if she'd driven to the nearest place of safety or phone she'd of got away with it, but she drove past plaes where she could of got help.

luke m

mine was a fair question with no presumptions.

to be honest, most people could have predicted your uneducated response.

a person easy to categorise.

lets get back to the thread, don't respond.

Richard_P

Ok hypothetically, I have a brother who has a heart attack so I drive him to hospital and run down your wife on the way. My brother is a heavy smoker drinker and eater so brought it all on himself.

Your wife was completely innocent and now has lost her leg because I drove after 4 pints and didn't see her.

That ok with you?

sociopath

I'm waiting for the first:

"<I/someone I know> got hit by a drunk driver and therefore I am blinkered to the point of damning you to hell for saving someones life by driving after 2 beers!

Come on... where are you?

sociopath

Depends... is your brother a ****?

One decent life saved for one leg lost seems like a fair deal... but if your brother is a worthless muppet like 'luke m' then no deal. Let the worthless **** breath his last.

sociopath

By the way... interesting that you think 4 pints would suddenly make you a completely dangerous driver with 100% chance of hitting my missus. You must be quite a ****e driver normally.

Chip Sengravy

what about after the watershed, and you have run out of ****?

Richard_P

Hehe nah I don't have a brother.

I actually passed a breath test on 4 pints a few months back (see a previous thread) wasn't driving just persuaded a friendly cop to test me

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

you can drink ten pints a pass a breath test................depends if the booze has hit the bloodstream by then

douglasb

[back on topic]

If you blow over the limit while driving, then you are guilty of drink driving. If you can show that you had no alternative but to drive, you might get away with no ban but a load of points and a hefty fine. Next year's insurance bill could also be interesting.

[/back to the bull]

hedgehog

If the speed had been high enough. or the driving bad enough, such that he was posing a threat to other road users the charge would have been dangerous driving. However, I was discussing the statements in the context of a charge of speeding and under such circumstances I assumed that the police, say, had no reason to believe that the driver was not in full control of the vehicle.

Where the two statements become even more interesting, however, is when the driver has actually killed someone. Using statement two as a defence does it imply that, as the driver was aware of the potential consequences, he set out with an awareness that he may have killed someone and yet he continued on this path despite being in total control of his circumstances and, therefore, in a position to slow down and avoid the accident?

Also how would this apply if the person responding to our "emergency" killed someone? If they went to court and said they considered the risks of driving and thought they should do it are they then in a position where the death was virtually pre-meditated?

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

if you was a celeb you could get away with it

how comes that they just get a short ban or usually just a fine but the rest of us would prolly end up with much more

hedgehog

If you are convicted of drunk in charge, i.e. guilty, then the court has no option but to ban the driver. It is not within the powers of the court to make this decision as I believe it is part of the legislation as laid down by Parli.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

your posts are too long

if you was caught driving whilst just over the limit that is one thing but if you was caucht just over the limit and you hit something the action would be totally different

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

If I'd had 2 beers (which put me over the limit) but the situation was such that to wait for a response/ambulance would mean that my child was likely to lose her life, then I would drive. Sensibly.

If I got done for DD as a result of saving my child's life and lost my licence, I would not worry as I know which is more important to me.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

i think that is the most sensible answer so far

bladdy hell i gave a compliment to a mod

hades

Wrong. Probably in most - perhaps over 99% - cases, there is a way round it. However, there can be and have been (admittedly very few) situations where there is no reasonable way round it (if the way round it is to let someone die or whatever, that is not reasonable). E.g. somewhere remote, no-one else sober who could drive, no phone contact to call for help, someone unexpectedly taken sick / potentially dying if they don't get help type situations. At 2 bottles of beer as suggested, it is very marginal as to whether you're above the legal limit or not.

The thing about emergencies is that generally you don't plan for them to happen. How many people think "I'm staying the night in a nice quite pub in the middle of nowhere, there's a remote chance that a power cut will take out the phones and mobile mast, and in the dark the wife will fall down the stairs and seriously injure herself, so I won't drink"?

I do agree in the vast majority of the situations I've ever heard of where someone has claimed "it was OK to drink drive, because it was an emergency", there was most certainly a way round it.

IMHO, always should be a balance of risks, chance you might be driving slightly over the limit and therefore small probability you might cause an accident versus high probability someone will die if you don't get them to help, and you can find no other way to do so - I'd drive. Compare that to being paralytic and driving because someones twisted their ankle and the mobile battery is flat, very different.

Pragmatically, I suggest you take the path that is least likely to result in pain/death for anyone (be they urban or country). In real life, that tends to get a little "imbalanced" if the pain/death potential is to somone you love.

douglasb

My understanding was that a defence against a ban was that you were (for example) taking a heart attack victim to hospital. While this doesn't absolve you from being guilty of drink driving, I thought that it could be used to get you off a ban.

I am probably completely wrong and stand corrected.

Sara - celebs only seem to get off with speeding charges. (Or someone will provide evidence of pissed footballers getting off with no ban).

Spoon

Someone I know did, in fact it was me!

hedgehog

But it doesn't answer your question, (not that I have either) which was "is it justified?"

The point Puff made is related to the level of punishment necessary to deter an individual from committing a given act and also the circumstances under which a person might carry out an act with no regard to the punishment no matter how severe. Again these are moral questions which are difficult to answer, though a good start can be made by reading the works of Dostoyevsky.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

did cyclepath run you over spoon?

Spoon

Considering I've been suspected as being him then it would have been even rougher justice, running over ones self.

hedgehog

I believe that the legislation is such that conviction for DIC carries a mandatory ban, so the judge or magistrate could not convict and not also ban the driver. If the driver were not to be banned then it would be necessary that he were not found guilty of the DIC charge.

However, there may be circumstances in which you would be correct:

It is possible, and we would need to read all the words to find out, that the legislation has a "get out clause" which would, in special circumstances, allow the court to find the driver innocent of DIC despite him driving while over the limit. As an parallel example of what I am getting at a lot of legislation has a clause which exempts a police officer acting in the course of his duties from being convicted of certain crimes even if he carried out the actual physical actions necessary to make a normal person think he was guilty of, say, parking on double yellow lines. So a police officer can be found innocent of the crime of parking on double yellow lines even if he did actually park on them if he can show it was necessary to do so for him to carry out his duty.

It may also be possible that a higher court can agree with a lower court that the driver is gulity of the crime but that there are circumstances prevailing which mean that they should not be banned but I do not believe it is within the power of the lower courts to do this. It may be that this would mean going all the way to the House of Lords.

So, you may be correct if there is a means by which the driver can be found not guilty or if there is a route by which the ban can be overturned by a higher court.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

long post alert again^

didnt that midget from East 17 run himself over

hedgehog

You asked a tricky question, you don't expect us to discuss it in one word answers do you?

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

yes

am only joking, have been getting little un ready for bed so it was difficult to concentrate

Spoon

I could have placed a bet on that answer!

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

on mine?

Spoon

Not without gloves!