How (not) to avoid a drunk driving conviction with one weird trick

Look, IANAL, but laws generally lag technological change, so don’t push your luck with your semi-autonomous car-thing.

@Mangochin: Given it was 1984-ish, definitely still DUI. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Especially the way cops around here love handing out traffic citations (though driving over the limit is a criminal offense) and wouldn’t care if you were in the back seat with the keys in someone else’s pocket.

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That’s felony offense?

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you’re doing this right now?

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it’s the south. can’t disenfranchise people if you can’t even charge them with a felony.

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Yep. I just looked up the statute here in MN.

“Driver” means every person who drives or is in actual physical control of a vehicle.

“Vehicle” means every device in, upon, or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, excepting devices used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks.

Interestingly highway is never discretely defined. There are various types of highways defined but not just a plain highway even though it’s repeatedly refereed to in the definitions.

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So wheelchair pushed by someone else is pretty much “designated driver”.

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No, the 48 hour hold is a civil rights violation, seizing a person without sufficient probable cause to arrest them, and denying them assistance of counsel while detained. Do some jurisdictions nevertheless do it? Yes, but they fucking we’ll shouldn’t according to the constitution. This type of hold is the exception, not the rule. If you are detained in this way, sue the bastards. IAAL.

At any rate, this case is an example of over policing, and criminalizing victimless behavior-aside from taking the scooter, which should be a relatively trivial, civil matter, unless they can prove intent to actually steal, rather than borrow the thing without permission, in exigent circumstances. A felony charge is over the top. How is anyone supposed to have any fun?

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Don’t forget Zambonis!

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You just gave me a flashback to driver’s ed…in MN.

@DukeTrout: Goes without saying. :wink:

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Hopefully in winter. My second behind the wheel class took place during a freezing rain storm. As we were driving I35E from white bear lake to St. Paul a car did a full 360 in front of us. We drove side streets home. Looking back decades later my one takeaway was that the instructor was an idiot for not canceling the class.

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Of course it was! Finished just before Xmas. WBL? I’m so sorry.

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‘Highway’ is generally meant to mean a road, street or freeway.

I know that but I was quoting from the MN statutes where it is not specifically defined. You missed the point.

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