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I think it's entirely dependent on the area, and using breathalyzer tests in one city as a proxy isn't very convincing. I grew up in a mostly white, upper middle class, Boston suburb with next to no violent crime. All I've ever seen the police do is harass teenagers, such as myself for J walking many years ago, or breaking up house parties.

I spent freshman year of university in The Bronx, an borough in NYC which has highest poverty rate of any urban area in the States and by far the most dangerous of the NYC boroughs. I remember early on being afraid of seeing cops outside the bar we all wen't to that openly served minors, but they had more important things to do, such as protecting us on the walk back to campus. J walking is almost encouraged just so you keep you moving. The people police have to deal with are some of the scariest I've ever seen.

Further, every couple days we get an email about students getting mugged or worse, and every time the assailant is black or Hispanic. Without fail, despite 50+ notices at this point. Please, tell me how a cop can put away racial prejudices with statistics like that? Should they? Of course, but it's not that simple.

Ultimately I think the largest problem is the militarization of the police force. An army is supposed to fight an enemy, the police are supposed to protect citizens and mixing up the two becomes very dangerous very quickly.`

*Edit Typos and clarity

> Ultimately I think the largest problem is the militarization of the police force. An army is supposed to fight an enemy, the police are supposed to protect citizens and mixing up the two becomes very dangerous very quickly

Completely agree with this.

Over the past few years I have noticed this militaristic attitude creep into the Australian police force (and private security businesses, as they always copy what the police do). It is as though they are all just waiting for some massive global uprising that's never going to happen.

What bothers me is the attitude that comes with this new uniform tends to provoke responses from drunk idiots that are inline with these unspoken fears.

> Over the past few years I have noticed this militaristic attitude creep into the Australian police force

Then you will not be surprised to know that this is happening in the US too. Apparently the police in South Carolina need a "mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle"[1]

[1] http://benswann.com/sc-police-department-gets-u-n-blue-tank-...

That's all over the US right now. With Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, the Army has a bunch of unneeded MRAPs sitting around and they've been giving them away to LEOs.

It's gonna depend on location. Cop in the rich white suburbs might spend all day writing traffic tickets (civil), cop in the urban ghetto might spend all day investigating armed robbery (criminal).

A traffic ticket is not a civil offense. At least in Texas, it's a Class C Misdemeanor in the penal code.

Are you sure that that's the only circumstance in which an officer may breathalyse? From my memory of Traffic Cops, they routinely breath test anyone stopped for most other reasons to determine if it's a contributing factor.

Without another incident, they'd require a suspicion of erratic driving before arbitrarily stopping someone for drink driving.

Well, the link I supplied quotes the law.

> Under the Road Traffic Act 1988, the police can require a person to take a screening breath test if they have a reasonable cause to suspect that:

> ● the person is or has been driving or attempting to drive or is in charge of a motor vehicle on a road or other public place with alcohol in their body (section 6(2) and 6(3));

> ● has committed a moving traffic offence (section 6(4)); or

> ● has been involved in an accident (section 6(5)).

> The subsequent evidential test carried out at the police station can be submitted as evidence in court.

> The prescribed alcohol limit is 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath, which equates with 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100ml of blood.

> It is an offence to refuse to take a breath test when required to do so by a police officer unless there is a reasonable excuse. Court penalties for refusing an evidential test are the same as being above the prescribed limit.

Sure, my point was just that a low proportion of failed/refused tests doesn't necessarily imply that the officer originally believed the person to be intoxicated, and wrongly suspect them of criminality.

Yeah, I got knocked off my bike by a car and mildly concussed; the addending police breathalysed both me and the driver. I suspect this happens routinely at minor accidents. I guess they're using "there was an accident" as evidence that there may have been erratic driving.

(in the UK)

I imagine that knocking someone off their bike counts as "erratic driving".

As a cyclist (and driver), it is as likely to be the cyclists fault.

Not so. A study by Westminster Council found fault with the cyclist in only 20% of collisions between bicycles and motor vehicles.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3758...

> • The number of positive or refused tests in 2009 increased by three per cent from 91,666 in 2008 to 93,973 in 2009 after a three year decline.

Why are refused tests counted with positive tests?

I can't speak to the exact legal background, but this article explains the process well: http://dui.drivinglaws.org/resources/dui-refusal-blood-breat...

From what I've heard in any other state I've lived in (US), it is the same or similar there.

Wow, that's a lot harsher than I was expecting. Suspending someone's license for a year, even if they don't drink, because they refuse a breathalyser? It seems kind of like a 5th and 6th amendment violation.

Judges and juries and awful politicians have been carving out little chunks of those amendments for the past 200 years. There's very little left to chip away.

>They're only allowed to use a breathalyser if they have reason to suspect someone is drunk

That is a weird rule.

It sure doesn't seem weird to me. Breathalyzers are invasive.

Different perspective I think.

Here (I live in Europe) they make routine breath tests during the holidays and week end for every car in X place (not surprisingly close to bars and clubs, but not always).

As a driver, I'm glad they try to reduce drunk driving, and I don't see how they could do it without regular tests (which are less invasive, than say, car that don't turn on if you fail the breath test inside the car. Yes, that was proposed at some point)

The US supreme court ruled that DUI checkpoints, where drivers may be stopped for a brief (~30 second) questioning to see if they appear drunk, but no answers are legally required, are legal here. This was a controversial decision and several states either passed laws or their existing state constitution prevent dui checkpoints.

The idea of a forced breath test without any evidence of intoxication is simply mind boggling to me.

Different perspective: I see it it as a requirement of holding a license and operating a motor vehicle that I have agreed to demonstrate I'm in a state capable of doing so safely when asked to do so in a manner that causes only minor inconvenience.

I'm in Australia, random breath tests have been around for many years and they have helped a lot with a culture of getting drunk and driving home.

> Different perspective: I see it it as a requirement of holding a license and operating a motor vehicle that I have agreed to demonstrate I'm in a state capable of doing so safely when asked to do so in a manner that causes only minor inconvenience.

What overly broad reasoning. Flip it around and apply it to other things that you could do to hurt people and you can apply that reasoning to all parts of your life.

If you're driving a 5000 pound vehicle on public motorways, I don't see any problem with it. Driving is a privilege that's contingent upon following the rules, not a right.

Actually, your worldview is wrong, and mine is right, and driving is a human right that is not contingent on giving up privacy rights, right to not have your car searched, or other rights.

If you have your own private motorway or racetrack with no one else on it, fine. But operating a vehicle on public streets and highways is a privilege. Not being run over by your drunk ass--that's a human fucking right.

You seem so angry at the notion that somebody might have a different view than yours.

Maybe he got a little annoyed being spoken to by someone so smug they used the line "your worldview is wrong, and mine is right" without trying to be funny.

My entire original reply was about philwelch blithely spouting his opinion as if it were relevant at all and that jmccree needed to hear it. It's a blatant replication of his smugness.

That's not how it came across to me at least. His reply came across as a reasonable part of a discussion, and you came across as being a total asshole. Your assertion it was a "blatant replication of his smugness" just reinforces that impression to me.

If that's not the impression you want to give, you might want to reconsider your approach.

I'm not interested in people's impressions of me (and it doesn't bother me a bit if they think I'm an asshole -- I guess I'm just selfless that way).

That doesn't make you selfless, that makes you selfish, because you only care about what you think of your self and ignore what others think of you.

Enjoy it while the delusion of being right lasts!

Actually, his worldview closely matches the world out there, and yours doesn't, so technically his worldview is right.

Are you serious?

Where did you get the idea that driving is a human right?

Perhaps from the UN? "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State."

In the US, for probably 90% of the country there is no easily accessible public transit, cabs are financially infeasible for the working class, and attempting to walk down roads without sidewalks is very dangerous, and outright illegal for interstates and some highways. For a large percentage of the population, taking away the "privilege" of driving would entirely remove their right to move about the country freely.

When there is no alternative to driving to reach a grocery store, your place of employment, etc. can it really be considered a privilege?

By that reasoning, people who either can't afford cars or can't be trusted with them (DUI convicts) have no ability to travel freely. There are lots of infrastructure changes that should be made to fix that problem, so enshrining the right to drive cars around is neither a complete solution nor an especially efficient or safe one.

Not being able to afford a car is an entirely different matter from the government forbidding you from driving one. As for DUI offenders etc, once they've served their sentence they should have the right to drive like anyone else. During their jail or probation sentence, obviously they forfeit many civil rights.

It's a far easier problem economically to focus on those who can't afford a car than to build out public transportation networks. Perhaps in the future when there are driverless cars everywhere, driving could be a privilege. As it is now, and for the foreseeable future, driving is a requirement for many americans. I moved to a city with public transit to avoid driving, but not everyone has that option, and it's important to remember that.

> It's a far easier problem economically to focus on those who can't afford a car than to build out public transportation networks.

That's a very shortsighted statement. The costs of universal driving in terms of property damage, human injury and death, unproductive time spent commuting, traffic, inefficient urban design, resource expenditure, road maintenance, etc. are significantly higher than those of public transit.

And if you don't believe me about people who simply can't afford to drive, what about people who physically can't drive, like the blind? Or people who physically shouldn't drive, but are sometimes forced to do so, like people who suffer from narcolepsy or get intermittent seizures?

The only reason people don't have the option of avoiding driving is because of poor public infrastructure decisions and in some cases poor personal decisions when we can easily afford to do otherwise. Why do we make these poor decisions? Because we think driving our fat asses around in 5000-pound behemoths is a "right" that needs to be accomodated everywhere, but walking and cycling aren't. It's not science fiction--people managed to do without cars for thousands of years.

Setting all of that aside, if you're operating a motor vehicle that could easily kill people out of inattention, you're putting the public at risk and you have a responsibility to demonstrate you can do so competently and responsibly. Not being killed by cars is a more important right.

Use your brain and try thinking of one of the many plausible ways one might come up with that opinion.

Blunt force trauma?

I think people are okay with it if police are friendly and polite, and if there's some benefit.

Mass breath-testing programme always get a few complaints, but I think they'd get a lot more if people realised how few drunk drivers are caught, or if police were rude. Blowing into a tube for X seconds is invasive, but sobriety tests (walking a straight line, touching your nose, etc) feel weirder to me. (I realise that in both US and UK neither of these can be done unless they think you're drunk, and GP post was talking about tests done with no suspicion of drunkeness).

Nah driving is way too dangerous to not have safety requirements involved like random breath testing. Driving kills far more people than it should, and drink driving is part of the reason.

...car that don't turn on if you fail the breath test inside the car....

From what I've heard, these already exist for repeat DUIs.

They're called an ignition interlock [1]. And now all 50 states allow them for a DUII penalty in some form.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignition_interlock_device

It's an inconvenience, but the thing that makes me most averse to that system is that it presumes guilt. Here in the US, cops are not allowed (though enforcement is lax) to detain you for any reason without reasonable suspicion that you've committed a crime.

Another perspective - what if they just followed cars leaving those bars and clubs for 1 mi., then returning and starting over after observing the driver's behavior?

I'm actually not opposed to breathalyzers inside of the car - it seems far less invasive than cops doing it for you, with the authority to ruin your life. If the car won't let you drive, call a friend or a taxi.

In any event, I'd prefer to avoid the hassle and feeling of being a suspected criminal that accompanies being stopped on the way home at a checkpoint. Papers please? (jk...?)

>Another perspective - what if they just followed cars leaving those bars and clubs for 1 mi., then returning and starting over after observing the driver's behavior?

You might notice someone being completely drunk that way, but not someone who's just moderately drunk reacting 10 times slower; unless something happens, of course, but you don't want that either.

We seem to have exactly the same thing going on in Johannesburg, South Africa. Cops / Metro police stop people all the time and start an inquisition about how much a person has been drinking etc, threatening a breathylzer, jail etc.

Of all the times it's happened to me, I've actually completed one breathylzer test (it was zero).

It's borderline harassment at best, at worst solicitation of a bribe. I always ask, "what caused you to stop me or aroused your suspicions that I have been drinking?" and I never get an answer.