Random Breathylizer Tests Considered For Canada, page 1

"In the European Union, they demand that their countries, as part of membership for road safety, have sophisticated random breath testing because of the difference it's made in lives saved," he told CBC News.

Murie said the change would allow police at roadblocks to conduct about three times as many breathalyzer tests because they would not need to spend time determining whether there is "reasonable" suspicion a driver has been drinking.

The issue for civil libertarians, however, is that changing the law to allow random testing would be a violation of a person's right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

"It has no real place in a democratic society," said Richard Rosenberg of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.

"Giving police power to act on a whim is not something we want in an open democratic society."


( I don't know how to snippet so this is the besat I can do)


www.cbc.ca...

reply to post by DrumsRfun

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Giving more power to police is a bad idea.

Don't get me wrong I despise drunk drivers with a passion. I lost my best friend to a drunk driver, and almost lost my life to one.

What I despise more though is those who try to take away our liberties by playing on our fears.

This isn't about giving 'rights' to drunk drivers this is about taking away the rights of law-abiding citizens.

If I haven't committed a crime why should I be subjected to an invasion of my privacy?

I'm sure the police need to find more ways to catch 'criminals' to increase revenue and this seems to be a backdoor attempt at that.

Where does it stop? How many civil liberties are you willing to give up so you can feel safe?

reply to post by lucentenigma

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I am of the opinion that only people who can afford it have rights so I kinda look at it as I don't really have many rights to begin with.
I just went thru this with someone (a former ats member)
He was beat up by the cops because they entered his home while he was in his bedroom and he tried to get them out and make a citizens arrest on them....all of a sudden they beat the crap out of him and he thought he had rights and went to court...he can't afford to have rights and that was proven today.They had the wrong house and in the end my buddy got hozed.(and beaten to a pulp)

Usually I am against giving the police more rights but this time I actually agree and its not my fears they are playing on its more my hatred for drunk driving.
Do we really have rights or are they just priveledges?

reply to post by lucentenigma

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Yes I realized just now that I have heard that before when they were talking the patriot act.

Still...how would you combat the problem then in spite of this?
Also,the patriot act is very different then trying to stop drunk driving.

Originally posted by DrumsRfun
reply to post by lucentenigma

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Yes I realized just now that I have heard that before when they were talking the patriot act.

Still...how would you combat the problem then in spite of this?
Also,the patriot act is very different then trying to stop drunk driving.

Like Wayne mentioned there are devices out there.

I know in Florida they usually make anyone on probation for drunk driving have an breathalyzer ignition lock installed on their vehicle.

In Florida they are pretty strict, my friend had his licensed automatically suspended for almost a year when he was charged with DUI. It's was pretty ridiculous because he doesn't drink but he smarted off to the cop. He had to take manadory breathalyzers every day until trial. Ended up beating the charge, he had a epileptic seizure when they pulled him over but the great state of Florida considered him guilty as charged before he went to trial. That's what we deal with down here. Anyways I'm rambling....

I think everyone should have the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty (my point of the ramble was to let people know that it's the other way around these days), but once they are proven guilty of drunk driving they should be required to have one of these devices.

I also think that increasing the penalty's for drunk driving would be a helpful deterrent.

You constantly hear of people on probation for their 4th or 5th DUI, that's ridiculous IMO.

So in a nutshell once your proven guilty of DUI you need to prove that you innocent to drive (breathalyzer ignition lock) and we need a lot stiffer penalty's for drunk drivers especially repeat offenders.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by lucentenigma]

I hate to be bursting any bubbles here, but this law will not change a thing, except infringe on the rights of the overwhelming majority, for the benefit of the very few. The police already have the power to pull over and administer the breath test on drivers, even if they have not done anything wrong. All they have to do is allege that the driver was driving erratically, switched lanes abruptly without signaling, etc.

Why don't we just leave it as is and trust the fine individuals in law enforcement to use their better judgment and discretion as to who they can pull over and test? Isn't that what they have been trained to do? Giving them the power to pull people over indiscriminately only increases the chances of this thing becoming a witchhunt and will inevitably lead to more abuses of power (like we don't have enough already?).

Such a law is in direct violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (#8 and #9 on the following link). When you start chipping away at people's rights, you're headed down a very slippery slope (see the USA and their BS laws).

laws.justice.gc.ca...-ga:l_I-gb:s_2

So let's keep these laws for the United Police States of America. Americans are accustomed to being treated like crap and being told what to do. On the other hand, innocent law abiding Canadians aren't and have no interest in being treated like lowlife criminals.

reply to post by Aeons

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So the question then would be does the rights of the victim of a drunk driver get outweighed by the rights of a suspect.
Giving up some rights in order to curb drinking and driving might be a good medium in my opinion.

reply to post by DrumsRfun

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I totally disagree with this. Why would they bother to breathalyze people if they aren't exhibiting behaviour that points to them being drunk? Just because?
Are people gonna get pulled over and breathalyzed, only to be found to be sober, and then have some other bs charge put on'em, just so time isn't wasted?....It's amazing what they've defined as illegal over the years, they can always get you with somethin'.

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