[tuq]

There is no topic in this forum, <blink>NONE</blink>, that brings out the self-righteous a-holes like the DUI threads. Seriously, if I made use of the ignore feature I'd plonk every jackass who comes trotting into these threads with "your and idiot" (sic) and "you got what you deserved". This thread is no different of course.

A friend was recently pulled over and thrown in jail. His crime: driving BEHIND a cop and fitting the profile of someone that looked like a potential DUI in the cop's rear-view mirror: 20s/30s, two guys wearing baseball caps and t-shirts during the time of night (10:30) when the highest percentage of drunks is on the road (this is a fact; somehow the percentage is lower at bar time). He had been up in North Scottsdale drinking and was heading home with his roommate. The cop no doubt saw him in his rear view, pulled into the bike lane to let him pass, then pulled him over. Lucky for my friend he is very cautious about driving after drinking so he had a "DUI prevention kit" in his car consisting of Visine (I don't know why this would help with alcohol but I do know he likes P.O.T. so maybe that's why), breath mints, and body spray. His crime was that it turned out his license was suspended. Well, actually it turns out that it WASN'T suspended, he had paid a ticket some time back but the DMV hadn't relayed this to the Po Po so his license was listed as suspended. He cleared it all up in coming days but per AZ law I guess they had to take him to jail for the suspension, upon which he was bailed out an hour or two later.

One of the two cops grilled him about drinking but he appeared sober enough that they didn't bother to test him. But he found out another reason why they may not have: if he did test positive for DUI then that + the suspended license would have equaled a mandatory four months in jail. He thinks the cops knew that the pull over was BS enough - he wasn't cited for any moving violations - that they probably couldn't bring themselves to hang a DUI on him, or at least didn't think it would stick.

Around this time I found out that my license was suspended for an unpaid ticket and then a friend further alarmed me by saying that a cop can run your plate at a red light and it somehow syncs up with the registered owner and if his license is suspended he's effed. I paid for the ticket but what if it wasn't coordinated properly either?

Sorry, that drifted afield of the DUI conversation. I just can't bring myself to point out for the millionth effing time in these threads how artificially low .08 is and how the proselytizers probably drive over that limit fairly regularly without even realizing it.

It's a holiday weekend, and the bar I frequent is about 5-6 miles away. After reading this thread I'm thinking about cabbing both ways if I head over there later.