Drink-drive get-out?

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james01
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Drink-drive get-out?

Post by james01 »

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... d-21820359

....so you crash your car, get upset, drive off to a friend's & drink lots of vodka, police breathalyse you later, court says there's no proof you were drunk at the time of the crash. Case dismissed. I thought this defence had been unacceptable for years. This could open the floodgates :(
Bonefishblues
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by Bonefishblues »

Two pints of vodka in 15 mins. Right...
merseymouth
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by merseymouth »

If a driver crashes into me that I suspect is impaired by drink or drugs I'd summon the police!
The fact that the police don't want to attend motor incidents is why that silly driver has dodged a ban. All such incidents should receive attendance, maybe all drivers involved in any incident should be tested? If it means that parties have to hang around, well so be it!
That trick of diving home an having a snoot full is as old as the hills, drivers should be obliged to refrain from topping up with a stiffener after a prang, otherwise when tested later they would risk a fail.
Just test all, so if someone has taken a drink later then it should mean a fail! Rather on the lines of a masking agent in dope testing, presence of alcohol should mean ban. After all if they need to drink to settle their nerves then they ain't fit to drive in the first place. It should require no stimulants. IGICB MM
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mjr
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by mjr »

merseymouth wrote: 12 Oct 2021, 11:21am After all if they need to drink to settle their nerves then they ain't fit to drive in the first place. It should require no stimulants. IGICB MM
In a country where official advice was until 2105 to drink caffeine to drive better (and it still exists in the NI version of Rule 91), that view seems very unlikely to be upheld.

Alcohol is also a sedative and saying people shouldn't drive after taking a mild sedative would also be opposed by many, I think.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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661-Pete
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by 661-Pete »

Isn't there a crime of 'obstructing the Police' or similar? TC?
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thirdcrank
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by thirdcrank »

I think that obstructing the police in this context refers to the so-called "hip-flask defence" when somebody stopped and required to take a breath test has a swig of booze. AFAIK, that was tried on before it was established that being stopped by the police didn't mean the driver was no longer driving. So, I think the answer to that may be to tell the driver that their breath test would be delayed 20 minutes to allow for the dispersal of mouth alcohol, then they could blow as requested. The power to require a breath test from a driver believed to have alcohol in their blood would be reinforced as the belief would then be knowledge. (I've stacks of experience of breathalysers but not recent so things change.)

In the absence of an old-fashioned report from a dedicated old-fashioned court reporter noting it all in shorthand for the evening rag, we don't get the full picture, even in the Manchester Evening News which is generally pretty good IME.

All the beak seemed to be saying was that the prosecution hadn't proved the case. Bearing in mind that they also seemed to say the defence witnesses were rubbish (my words) then they seemed to come close to saying that an application of "no case to answer" might have succeeded. The prosecution seems to have depended on "the facts speaking for themselves." In this case that somebody so far above the limit so soon after a crash must, ipso facto, have been over the limit at the time of the crash.
ChrisP100
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by ChrisP100 »

From what I can gather her legal team picked holes in the arrest report.

Whatever happened, she has swerved a charge that 99% of people would convicted of.
Bonefishblues
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by Bonefishblues »

ChrisP100 wrote: 12 Oct 2021, 3:21pm From what I can gather her legal team picked holes in the arrest report.

Whatever happened, she has swerved a charge that 99% of people would convicted of.
Which is reassuring, I guess.
thirdcrank
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by thirdcrank »

If there's more online anywhere, I'd be interested in a link.

I do think this has got a bit more publicity than usual because the defendant and her chum have strutted their stuff outside court for the benefit of the cameras.

'Opening the floodgates' has been mentioned but as this is only a magistrates' court decision, its legal significance is zilch, although the publicity may cause people to try it.

One aspect of this case is that the driver went to the home of a friend, rather than repairing to a nearby hostelry for a medicinal Courvoisier so the friend who gave evidence could have been interviewed at the time to fix her version - but that's easily suggested and not easy when resources are stretched. I also wonder if the driver herself was interviewed when she had sobered up and before release. Again, that would have fixed her version, unless she came up with this defence later. As a layman and not basing it on any sort of experience, I fancy that for anybody but a hardened alcoholic to down two bottles of spirits in so short a time would be fatal, and that's the sort of expert evidence to call to rebut the defence. AIUI, alcohol especially copious alcohol affects the memory and I've never understood why the courts don't as a matter of procedure treat the evidence of people with a lot of it in their system with caution.

Re the facts speaking for themselves, around 1980 somebody was convicted of careless driving when they shunted another vehicle - the classic case of careless driving. It went on appeal and the decision was that the facts did not speak for themselves. In those pre-internet days, decided cases were reported in a short phrase in the footnotes of tombs like Stone's Justices' Manual so that practitioners could use those pointers as a guide where to look for full details, but the reality was that in no time at all, shunting another car went unprosecuted in many cases.
Last edited by thirdcrank on 12 Oct 2021, 4:07pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mick F
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by Mick F »

This situation has always existed. Nothing new here.

Crash your car, walk to the nearest pub and have a drink or three or four.
By the time the Old Bill turn up, you're drunk.

Nothing new under the sun.
Mick F. Cornwall
ChrisP100
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by ChrisP100 »

Mick F wrote: 12 Oct 2021, 4:07pm This situation has always existed. Nothing new here.

Crash your car, walk to the nearest pub and have a drink or three or four.
By the time the Old Bill turn up, you're drunk.

Nothing new under the sun.
Isn't that classed as 'leaving the scene of the accident'?

Surely if it is bad enough to warrant police attendance then you should remain at the scene?
thirdcrank
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by thirdcrank »

Another thing about alcohol allegedly consumed after a crash, it now seems normal to have an expert carry out an analysis of the time since the crash and the blood/alcohol when tested, including what's alleged to have been consumed in between. I suspect that in this case, the reading was so high, nobody expected it would be accepted that she had downed two bottles of spirits.

The best advice is don't drink and drive, but if you need legal advice, don't go to your local to get it. Legal advice that is, not drink
ChrisP100
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by ChrisP100 »

Does anyone honestly believe she wasn't drunk behind the wheel?

For her to have the tolerance to be able to consume 2 pints of spirits in such a short period of time without dying of alcohol poisoning would suggest to me that she has a serious drinking problem in the first place.
thirdcrank
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by thirdcrank »

ChrisP100 wrote: 12 Oct 2021, 4:11pm
Mick F wrote: 12 Oct 2021, 4:07pm This situation has always existed. Nothing new here.

Crash your car, walk to the nearest pub and have a drink or three or four.
By the time the Old Bill turn up, you're drunk.

Nothing new under the sun.
Isn't that classed as 'leaving the scene of the accident'?

Surely if it is bad enough to warrant police attendance then you should remain at the scene?
Leaving the scene of an accident isn't, in itself, an offence in E&W. My reading of the linked MEN report is that the driver did not fully comply with all the Road Traffic Act requirements, but as I've posted before, that's mainly administrative and it didn't stop the police tracing her quite quickly.
Jdsk
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Re: Drink-drive get-out?

Post by Jdsk »

ChrisP100 wrote: 12 Oct 2021, 4:22pm Does anyone honestly believe she wasn't drunk behind the wheel?
Fortunately people can't be convicted on what I think probably happened after I've read a newspaper article.

Jonathan
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