Drink Driving - Going to AA?

BeardyGit

fits wrote:

Goodness do any of the posters on this thread realise just how easy it is to be caught while barely over the limit??? A lot of self righteous talk going on here. I just love it when people equate 81mg with murder while 79mg (or being stoned, on prescription drugs, tired etc.) is cool!

He's on a provisional license. 0mg is the acceptable limit.

Agent Smith

Victor wrote:

but if you feel like insulting someone, at least do it under your own name.

i will...


Your a ****ing moran. you've gone to mountjoy over a drink related incedent. you claimed to clean up your act, Then you go out a drive under the infulance? I Hope you go to jail. you got off lightly the last time with the suspended time, and you've just spat in the face of the judge who sentanced you the last time.You want to abuse an orginisation that helps people give up an addiction that could kill them, an addiction that can destroy familys, just so it looks Good in court?


you make me sick

Joe

Victor

agent smith wrote:

i will... Your a ****ing moran.

Cool. Banned.

ats

fits wrote:

Goodness do any of the posters on this thread realise just how easy it is to be caught while barely over the limit??? A lot of self righteous talk going on here.

pity it wasn't easier for them to get caught, if the garda had the proper resources to police the streets and I'm also talking about organised crime but thats for another thread, then idiots like you and shane that think its ok to be "a little bit over teh limit" would get what you deserver.

read what you just posted and justify that statement would ya. coz its complete and utter crap. of course it should be easy to be caught while over teh limit, be it a little or a lot thats why its Over The Limit. jesus H Christ they shouldnt be over teh limit in teh first place while behind the wheel.

maybe a day in the life would sort out your "sure i wan't really drunk" attitude. spend a weeked in ICU, watch the life fade from a loved one coz some tosser couldn't leave the keys at home and take a cab. spend time with the families who have lost thier loved ones, or spend time in the rehab units with people who'se bodies have been damaged that they have to learn to adapt to not being able to walk or having to learn to walk again. are these extreme examples of teh effects of drink driving? yes but alas they are also teh cold hard facts. People die, people get sop seriously injured that they can't walk again or are parmenantly disfigured. spend time with these people, even one day and eth "its easy to be caught when yuo're a little over" attitude will hopefully fade. personally a part from mandatory public flogging for anyone caught DUI, I think something like the above should also be included in their sentence.

people are not being self righteous they are expressing disgust at 2 things. one the breaking of the law and beiong DUI and also the abuse of a care system that is put in place free of charge by good people to help those that want to get thier lives back in order. wasting limited resources that could be used to save someone elses life that frankly would deserve it more.

shane is trying to keep himself out of teh slammer. teh fact that he said he'd go after the holidays is proof enough that he is simply using the AA to stay out of jail and not because he has any actual remorse for what he has done. he's just another arsehole trying to get off with a sentance coz he doesn't want it on his record. if it was any other way he wouldn't have came out with teh mother of all statements "sure everyone does it" or "i was in a better condition than me mate" if he really had his life in order he would have realised that he has 1 drink offense against his name, even if it is suspended and if he Fd up again he was going to pay the price but instead he neglected to remember that and gets behind the wheel of a car. and then has teh balls to come on here trying to find a way the weasle out of it. Bright spark, he and others like him deserve everything they get to be perfectly honest. the only down side to these people is that its usually some innocent person that is injured or killed so the fool behind the wheel says hes "sorry and wont dop it again your honour thanks for the fine and the points" and off they go the following weekend and do it all over again.

fits wrote:

I just love it when people equate 81mg with murder while 79mg (or being stoned, on prescription drugs, tired etc.) is cool!

i dont condone being behind the while while on medication, prescribed or otherwise. I firmly believe there should be zero tolerance, any alcohol even one glass of wine and you should not get behind the wheel. and i don't recall seeing anone in this thread expressing the above opinion. it wasn't equated to murder but I said it should be treated with the same severity at the end of the day they know it is illegal, they know their reactions are slowed etc but they willingly get behind the wheel, therefore its premeditated no one forced them to do it. the bar man sure as hell didn't hold a bottle opener to his head and say "go on get in the car and drive sure you'll be fine". I've worked in bars abroad and have actually drove people home myslef instead of letting them drive. I drove their car home then took a cab back to work for some of our well known customers just so they wouldn't drive. Or i have taken their car keys from them and paid for a cab home. now i know this can't be done here but I lived in a small town so most customers where known on a first name basis.

as i said maybe shane does regret his actions, but i believe he regrets that he got caught and not that he drove. if he hadn't been stopped do you honestly think he'd be on her saying "do you think i should go to AA coas I got behind the wheel while drunk and got away with it" he would in his arse. if anything it would probably entice him to do it again coz he got away with it once.

and before anyoen asks if I have ever drank and got behind teh wheel, yes once 10 years ago, and like shane i "wasn't really drunk" and like Fitz onle "a little over the limit" in a country where teh drink driving limits are higher than in Ireland. I ended up in a ditch and only because someone drove by a while after was I taken to hospital. luckly no serious damage and more importantly nothing more serious tha a screwed up car and a dead deer to worry about. and to this day I regret it. My company christmas party is tomorrow night, i'll cost me about €50 in taxi fares to and from the thing but my keys will stay at home coz €50 is not a lot when compared to what else is at risk, my life, my job, someone elses life.

chump wrote:

Why is everyone being so critical of shane.

It could just be bad luck that in the only two incidences where he was drunk and broke the law and put lives in danger, he happened to get caught.

Unfortunate for him.

like hell it is bad luck, he knew what he was doing getting behind the wheel. pure and simple fact. so i think its safe to assume you think its ok to be DUI once you don't get caught? feel the same about rape and murder do you? once you dont get caught its ok?

teh criticism is as was said be my and others teh fact the he is trying to use and abuse a care system with limited resources to keep out of eth slammer coz he was too stupid to leave teh keys at home, or if he had to leave teh car in the parking lot and get a cab. we're not ctiticizing his bad luck.

Red Alert

I'm sorry to see you back here again shane with a problem. Like a lot of the other posters I'm a bit disappointed that this has happened to you, and it's not very nice for your christmas to have this hanging over you.

I'd be inclined to hope we all learn from our mistakes. I got really drunk a couple of nights years ago and then knew from experience that I just couldn't handle that amount of drink. Luckily I didn't do any harm to anyone or myself!

I would say go along to AA, no matter what your own personal reasons are, as you can't change how you feel. You might however find it a much better guide/help than you think. Yes I would imagine a judge would look favourably on it, but he might have been just that bit more impressed if you didn't leave it until another incident to sort out the problem.

On the drink drive thing: I'd never drive a car having had any drink at all that day, because even after a glass or two I do badly playing GTA, never mind a real car. The only reason the limit shouldn't be put down to zero is residual alcohol from a night out (like this morning if I drove in i'd be under the limit, but not zero). Just don't take the car if you want a drink.

Talliesin

fits wrote:

Goodness do any of the posters on this thread realise just how easy it is to be caught while barely over the limit???

It's extremely hard to be caught over the limit if you don't combine the activity of drinking alcoholic drinks and the activity of driving a vehicle.

Unfortunately it's also far too hard to get caught if you are actually over the limit.

I think the OP should go to the AA because he might get help with his drink problem, whether that problem is alcoholism or not. It might also help him get a lesser sentence, but hopefully he'll still have to do some time.

fits

To clarify things a little, I do agree with the drink driving laws as they stand.. Its the only way to go about things...

Having said that, to be caught over the limit means you were guilty of being over the limit, nothing more, nothing less.
It doesnt mean you're guilty of murder, or responsible for the 400 dead people every year... now that could be just because you were lucky, or not... but I do wish people wouldnt get so sensationalist about it...

ats

fits wrote:

to be caught over the limit means you were guilty of being over the limit, nothing more, nothing less.
..

does this still stand if the person found guilty of being over the limit happens to have an RTA and kill someone? or seriously injures them?

granted they may not have gone out with the expressed intention of running someone down or having an RTA but they did intentionally get behind the wheel so the possibility of an accident is increased a hell of a lot due to response times etc. they may not have intended to kill someone, but they did and yet most people who do that often get a lesser charge of manslaughter or what not maybe a year or two in the slammer. (not sure what the sentence is these days so open to correction). my over all point is the end result is the same, someone is dead by the intentional act of being DUI. unlike manslaughter which basically means accinential death in that you may kill someone in a fight or even while driving with 0 in your system, the fact you drive with alcohol or narcotics or what not in your system in my eyes means you should face a tougher sentence than DUI. it should be mandatory time behind bars. and i know the original thread had nothing to do with injury from being DUI but I'm trying to highlight the effects that drink driving has. its not just a case of crap i'm banned from driving for a few months, it can have a lasting effect on other people if there is an accident involved.

IMO there is no excuse for drink driving. be it over or under the legal limit if you want a drink dont drive not even 1 beer, there is always an alternative be it taxi, bus, train, vomit comet, or even the good old (and probably wobbly) feet.

fits

ats wrote:

does this still stand if the person found guilty of being over the limit happens to have an RTA and kill someone? or seriously injures them?

Silly question tbh... of course not...


This is an emotive subject for a lot of people quite understandably... I just feel like theres a lot of grey in between the black and white...

I live in a rural area and was at a party on Saturday night, I was driving so not drinking however... the following morning myself and OH decided to go for some breakfast at about 11.30, OH just hopped into drivers seat without thinking and we drove 2 miles to village. There was a checkpoint, and we honestly didnt know whether or not he was under the limit, breathalyser came up as zero, but it could easily have been at the limit, its just so hard to tell these days! And its dependant on how much you've eaten, how well liver is functioning, how fit you are etc.
Same thing happened after Electric Picnic at same time in morning, after stopping drinking at same time night before and he came up as being close to limit.. We were in camper van so pulled in and had some breakfast and coffee before going further.
I must get me one of those breathalyser keyring thingys...

Talliesin

fits wrote:

breathalyser came up as zero, but it could easily have been at the limit, its just so hard to tell these days!

We don't have new modern alcohol that affects ones brain differently than it did in the old days.

What you can't tell is if you're in the situation where you shouldn't be driving, but you might be okay legally.

fits

Talliesin wrote:

We don't have new modern alcohol that affects ones brain differently than it did in the old days.

What you can't tell is if you're in the situation where you shouldn't be driving, but you might be okay legally.

Huh! I dont understand what you're trying to say... He came up as zero, he had zero alcohol in his blood, he was fit to drive..... However because of previous incident, we werent sure whether he was under the limit.. The body metabolises alcohol at a different speed every time

ats

fits wrote:

He came up as zero, he had zero alcohol in his blood, he was fit to drive.....

actually no the alcohol was still in the blood just not on his breath hence why its a breath test not a blood test. , food, coffee, cigerattes etc even a breath mint can have and effect on that, hell even how hard of softly you breath into the machine or if you stop your breath fro a fraction have been known to cause problems with readings. but in teh actual blood stream? it can take days for the body to clear it out. i

fits wrote:

However because of previous incident, we werent sure whether he was under the limit.. The body metabolises alcohol at a different speed every time

it sure does and again depending on food content, fitness at teh time, age etc.

the point of teh tests in the morning are a good idea. ok there will be teh case of a person that goes out has 3 - 4 pints heads home gets 4-5 hours kip and gets behind teh wheel and is in fairness not drunk but will be stopped and found to possibly be over teh limit. and yes in this case it is unfair for them to be jailed. but look at teh other side of it for a second, what about the bloke that has 5-6 pints and no sleep and no food and gets in the car at 7 am? would it be sfe to say the deserver being arrested? that is the reason behind teh breath testing early in teh morning, not to catch someone coming out of slatterys on teh way to teh office who needs one to get through the day but to cathe teh people that went on a bender and who may or may not have managed to get some sleep and a shower but are in no condition to be behind the wheel. it is a proven fact that people can still be over the limit the next day and hence why there is a clamp down during these hours.

the fact that people may be over the limit at any time of day in any location is teh reasoning behind teh random breath tests. and to be honest i agree with it if it makes teh roads safer. that said I do believe if you are found to be over teh limit slightly the next day then possible blood tests etc to sho when teh alcohol was consumed should be used to clear said persons name.

I had a friend in Germany years ago that was out on the rip. few hours after drinking he'd had food etc and semed fine got behind the wheel and did something stupid, got pulled over but passed the breath test. but the cop was sure he had him DUI (probably coz od his attirude or the smell) so took him to the station. 3 more breath tests past, my mate was smoking so the cop in charge said the smoke is effecting the tests have a blood test. mate tried to say he was a morman so to take blood was against his religion, so the cops asked him if he paid his religious tax (yes in Germany you had to pay a portion of your imcome based on your religion) so he changed his mind about how devoted he was to the morman church strangley enough he lost the right to dive for 6 months. and also lost his job because he lived outside teh town he worked in and there was no transportation at all, he lived in a rural community. now if lets say he had failed the test on the morning after then maybe a blood test could have proved this and saved his license and his job. turns out he decided they even though being told he couldn't drive didn't actually mean not drive and he got done 5 months into the ban DUI again. lost his license permenantly. and rightly so.

ats

fits wrote:

...

OH just hopped into drivers seat without thinking and we drove 2 miles to village. There was a checkpoint, and we honestly didnt know whether or not he was under the limit, breathalyser came up as zero, but it could easily have been at the limit, its just so hard to tell these days! ...

as a rule in anything if in doubt don't do it.

dublinshane

Faith wrote:

http://www.alcoholicsanonymous.ie/opencontent/default.asp

That's a scary link - I could probably answer 4 or 5 yes's to that. They say if you answer 2 you probably are and answer 3 you almost certainly are. I think by that most people probably are. By that logic if you can't remember what you did last night and rang in sick because of a heavy night you're there.

Anyway I did ring up and am going along to see what's it like - I told them straight up that I didn't think I was but I wanted to come along. I won't be going until after Christmas anyway.

Don't know if anybody saw on the news last night but there was a thing about drink driving in New Mexico USA. Apparently drink drivers there have to pay to have some contraption fitted in their car that they have to blow into before they can start the engine. That seems to be a good way to go about things if people are caught here - you wouldn't be able to drive over the limit again but yet you still get on with things.

For those of you who thing I should go back to jail for this - I hope I won't but know it's a possibility. I swore to myself that I wouldn't do anything to land me back there again - now I know I did wrong but nothing that people haven't done legally before. It just made me think about those figures that were on the news about the % of people who end up back there after getting out. It's not surprising if people who have been there before get sent back because they did something that 400 people a week are caught for but don't get sent to prison for.

bohsboy

Once again I fear people are being duped by Shane. I never believed his "Mountjoy" story in the first place and now he's back for more.

I work there and his version of being inside certainly did'nt seem believable.

Nevyn

bohsboy if you have an issue with a post use the report post fucntion ,
unhelpful and off-topic posting will get you banned from this forum.
Do take time to read the charter which contains the rules and abide by them.
Have a nice day.
Thaedydal

The_Conductor

Shane- while your solicitor may be advising you attend AA meetings as a sign to the judge that you acknowledge you have a problem with alcohol and are prepared to face your problem and work through them- instead of viewing this as a manner of reducing your potential sentence, a far better thought would be to take onboard what your solicitor is saying- and attending the AA meetings, but not as a manner of reducing your sentence- as a manner of bettering yourself.

Rule of thumb- if you drink, regardless of how much or how little, do *not* drive...... Designated drivers get 3 soft drinks gratis in pubs this Christmas. You do *not* need to drink alcohol to enjoy yourself and have a good time. If you feel that you need alcohol in order to socialise and enjoy yourself- then you do most probably have a bad relationship with alcohol in your life.

While you may feel that it was unfortunate that you were caught, and possibly others were not- the fact of the matter is you were drinking and driving, which is illegal and dangerous, and you should face up to the consequences of your actions- first and foremost to yourself, thereafter the social consequences of your actions.

Victor

ats wrote:

I'm also talking about organised crime but thats for another thread, then idiots like you and shane that think its ok to be "a little bit over teh limit" would get what you deserver.

Banned.

ats

dublinshane wrote:

now I know I did wrong but nothing that people haven't done legally before. It just made me think about those figures that were on the news about the % of people who end up back there after getting out. It's not surprising if people who have been there before get sent back because they did something that 400 people a week are caught for but don't get sent to prison for.

thats some statistic 400 DUI offences a week? and not one prosocution? me thinks the Garda commisionier might have something to answer for if even half that figure where correct.

they didn't get sent down maybe because when stopped they didn't fail teh test or maybe they dont have any previous offences.

Victor

About 70% of such prosecutions are successful. Most result in driving bans and endorsements.

r3nu4l

dublinshane wrote:

It's not surprising if people who have been there before get sent back because they did something that 400 people a week are caught for but don't get sent to prison for.

The other 400 people don't go to prison because they presumably do not have previous alcohol related convictions for violent assault. It's your history of alcohol related crime that will probably see you sent inside once again.

Okay, without being judgemental, glad you are choosing to go to AA. I'd recommend that you go there with an open mind because while you seem to have come some way, you are still of the opinion that this is all unfair on you somehow. AA could actually help you and you may find yourself thinking it's the best decision you ever made, despite how you think now.

Victor

Shane, you might, in additon, consider another type of popular in the UK, where they teach drink drivers (and those with high penalty points) about the effects of alcohol. I don't have full details, but I can find them if you need them. It would cost a few hundred euros for a few days.