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Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

What purpose outside abetting in avoiding a DUI is there for publishing a live map of DUI checkpoints?

I’m not questioning whether you should be able to do it. I’m really curious.

You don't have to be driving impaired to have a strong desire to avoid the checkpoints. I avoid them because they're intrusive, oppressive, and upsetting.

>What purpose outside abetting in avoiding a DUI is there for publishing a live map of DUI checkpoints?

When Churchill made that famous quip about the "average voter" he was talking about the kind of people who complain out of one side of their mouth about law enforcement going hard on a particular class of laws they don't like while stating out the other that anyone who doesn't want to submit to a papers-please stop on the pretext of catching people engaged in a fairly common misdemeanor that they do want to see hard enforcement on is abetting said misdemeanor.

Here are some possibilities:

* You don't want your trip to be delayed

* You object to police checkpoints in principle

* You or your friends or family have had negative experiences with law enforcement, so you prefer to minimize contact

* You share a car with family members, one of whom smoked cannabis in it; the smell will result in an extended detention and investigation at a checkpoint

* Your license/registration/insurance is not current

* You are an undocumented immigrant

* There is a warrant for your arrest

The last 3 are actual crimes. Sure they aren't DUIs, but I wouldn't list them as valid reasons to avoid checkpoints.

"I want to avoid interacting with the cops because I committed other crimes they might punish me for" is not a good argument.

The question was "What purpose outside abetting in avoiding a DUI is there for publishing a live map of DUI checkpoints?".

As a technical point, being an undocumented immigrant is still not a crime in the USA though it can result in law enforcement actions with impact as severe as criminal penalties. Expired registration or insurance is a civil infraction rather than a crime in some jurisdictions.

Edit: I should clarify why it matters that some of these are civil infractions rather than crimes. Navigation apps that Apple allows, including Apple's own maps app informs users about police and speed cameras, which helps people violate the speed limit without being punished. There doesn't seem to be a coherent principle at work here though.

Sometimes I take a legally prescribed stimulant / controlled substance for ADHD. Those medicines can be perfectly safe to drive with once you know how the particular dosage affects you, and driving with them is often even safer at the appropriate therapeutic dosage than driving without them. Further, as a person with ADHD and a tic disorder, I would have a fair chance of failing a field sobriety test even if I'm sober. I'm also not thrilled with the idea of lying to cops, since I know that can be a crime separately from the question of DUI.

So, putting all that together, imagine this sequence: cop at a DUI checkpoint asks me to perform a field sobriety test. I refuse, either without giving a reason or citing my ADHD and tic disorder. They ask me if I'm taking any medicine for ADHD. I don't lie and either confirm that fact or plead the fifth, or even if I do lie they still might not believe me. I probably don't have the pills or the bottle with me since I wouldn't usually be taking it in the car anyway. They then insist on a blood test, either with consent or with a quickly obtained warrant. I then have to accept a long detour going for the blood test, and then spend a lot of time and money proving in court both that I had a legal prescription and that I was not legally impaired by the medicine. (Even if I do have the correctly labeled pill bottle with me in the car, the cop still might incorrectly assume the medicine impairs me.)

Avoiding this hassle is a perfectly legal and legitimate reason to want to know where DUI checkpoints are.

Nothing I'm saying is condoning driving drunk - I certainly don't do that. When I drink, I pay attention to the advice of blood alcohol content calculators to figure out when I'm safe to drive and when it's fully out of my system. And when I take medicines that interact with alcohol, I'm even more cautious with drinking than when I don't.

  What purpose outside abetting in avoiding a DUI is there for publishing a live map of DUI checkpoints?

That is easy to answer - letting law abiding citizens going about their personal business know that if they go through an area they are likely to be stopped and subjected to being searched by police without cause.

You can be charged with a DUI despite being 100% sober, and you can be convicted, too. Both will upend your life.

I’m returning home from the store with cold medicine for my toddler late at night and I don’t want to have my trip increased by 15mins due to some police state bullshit.

As useful data for sober civil libertarians who want the choice to route through a DUI checkpoint to exercise their rights.

I wouldn't code it because there's no way to disallow the service for the set of people over the legal limit trying to avoid a DUI checkpoint. But if, say, a group of sober civil libertarians find a way to tell each other how to always choose right-exercising routes, I don't see any obvious ethical problems with that.

We do not have DUI checkpoints in my country, but I would assume they delay the travel due to being, you know, checkpoint. So it might be desirable to take alternative route if you do not want to spend time waiting for the check. I guess?

I strongly doubt this was a reason for the app though.

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