Morning Breath Testing - Wrong Target?

Supercell

This morning heading into work the Gardai were stopping all cars going into and out of Roundwood (Annamoe side) around 07:15 and breathalysing nearly every one (dunno what the criteria was) myself included.

I imagine if they caught someone they would have hauled him/her away in a squad car leaving theirs behind, but there was only squad cars there so assume it was either just set up or no-one was testing positive.
I obviously passed but it did set me to wondering the sense of it all.

I mean why where they there on a cold damp Tuesday morning long long after the pubs had closed?? Sure there is is a small chance they might catch a habitual total pisshead, but surely they would catch far more of these characters in the very early hours of the morning and take more of these people off the road?

I am for random breath testing - where its going to do some good, but can't help feeling that this was a poor allocation of states resources being spent in the wrong place.

Pherekydes

Longfield wrote:

I am for random breath testing - where its going to do some good, but can't help feeling that this was a poor allocation of states resources being spent in the wrong place.

Random means it can happen anywhere, anytime. Eventually, they'll pop up outside your village.

If the Gardaí don't do it, then people will get the idea that once they're home after the night in the pub, they're safe [to drive]. But they're not...

The tax man

Coming close to months end.....strange indeed.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Supercell

Slow coach wrote:

Random means it can happen anywhere, anytime. Eventually, they'll pop up outside your village.

There were!

If the Gardaí don't do it, then people will get the idea that once they're home after the night in the pub, they're safe [to drive]. But they're not...

To be honest I'd rather they were caught coming home from the pub stinking drunk than the next day with a hangover and then passing the test and feeling that half the tests (or whatever prercentage) are being carried out on people just going to work.

I hope the day testing percentage is far smaller than the night one (when far more drink drivers are on the road), but am not convinced thats the case.

Supercell

The tax man wrote:

Coming close to months end.....strange indeed.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Yeah they were careful to check tax, insurance, and license as well...i'm certain there was no end of month quota work being done there....

NUTLEY BOY

If you fail the breath test and the subsequnt one at the station then you are, by definition, the right target.

QED and possibly one less body in the fridge at the mortuary.

Hagar

If they are that keen why don't they random breath test at night on the roads near the pubs?

Or is that a bit too obvious?

Anan1

Hagar wrote:

If they are that keen why don't they random breath test at night on the roads near the pubs?

Or is that a bit too obvious?

They do out my way. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the time or place, which is, I suppose, how it should be.

nialler

I was stopped around midday just after the palmerstown roundabout on sunday, there were 4 officers there, telling everybody that it was random breath testing, he read the rights then asked me was I out the night before, I answered honestly saying I was out with wife, parents and inlaws, he asked what time we left the pub, I said around 3am, got home had another beer watching a video with wife, went to bed around 4, told him how many drinks I had (I did feel slightly hung over) and he said I may be close that I should allow 1.5 hours sleep for every pint had, I was on around 1 hour. Nervous to say the least, I passed but he reckons I was just under the limit. Driving next morning after a night on the beer is as much threat as going and having just the one and hopping into the car to drive home, so fair play to them, I now make sure there's plenty of time next day before I drive.

~~SKYHIGH~~

I dont drink so I dont have to worry about it;)

5500

Does anyone know does a figure actually show on there unit or just a pass/fail icon or light?

I've heard of a couple of people being told they "just about passed" so im wondering is it crap talk from the cops knowing they had a pint a day before or if there is an actual figure on the screen?

Anan1

The machine I used had three possible readings: zero, pass, or fail.

Woogie Boogie

seems to be garda strategy not to catch as many as possible but to be seen to be checking by as many as possible. Obviously a lot more people are going to see them checking in the morning than in the middle of the night. Also there might be a resource issue here as the garda probably prefer to work normal hours

DonJose

The tax man wrote:

Coming close to months end.....strange indeed.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Damn the gardai, don't they have anything better to be doing that stopping law abiding drink drivers :mad:

DonJose

Longfield wrote:

To be honest I'd rather they were caught coming home from the pub stinking drunk

Theres no law stopping you from getting píssed drunk at home, however there is a law stopping you from drink driving the following morning!!!

Tails142

You know the garda probably take the breathylsers (sp?) home with them and mess about drinking cans to see how many before they're over the limit. Sure that's what I'd do!!!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I couldn't care less what time of day they catch someone driving over the legal limit. One less potential death on the road avoided!

prospect

Morning Breath Testing - Wrong Target? - Yes

49% of speed checks on safe roads - Wrong Target - Yes

Other 50% of speed checks on roads with temporarily reduced or ridiculously low limits - Wrong Target - Yes

Pulling people for very minor offenses (e.g. entering a bus lane less than 10m from its end to make a left turn) rather than dealing with habitual dangerous driving - Wrong Target - Yes

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

prospect wrote:

Morning Breath Testing - Wrong Target? - Yes

49% of speed checks on safe roads - Wrong Target - Yes

Other 50% of speed checks on roads with temporarily reduced or ridiculously low limits - Wrong Target - Yes

Pulling people for very minor offenses (e.g. entering a bus lane less than 10m from its end to make a left turn) rather than dealing with habitual dangerous driving - Wrong Target - Yes

Here we go again! It's now official you can drive although impaired by alcohol during daylight hours, and exceed the speed limit if you consider the road to be safe at greater speed. All drivers can now ignore temporary speed limits as the authorities just put the signs there because they had nowhere else to store them, and Gardaí will in future totally ignore people commiting minor offences - in fact we will have no crimes below murder, rape, and robbery in excess of €1.5Million from here on in.

Frisbee

Im always scared of being done the next morning if im breath tested. Hence why I'll usually never drive before 3 o'clock on a Sunday.... :P
Going out midweek and being in work/college early the next morning is risky, but its been done

seamus

Danica Ugly Criminal wrote:

Here we go again! It's now official you can drive although impaired by alcohol during daylight hours

I don't think that was his point. He was saying that the Gardai were picking easy targets, rather than focussing their efforts where they are needed most.

Just over a quarter of fatal crashes occur between 9pm and 3am. You can laugh at this statistic, but these are the hours where there are massively reduced number of vehicles on the roads, so you would expect that far less than 25% of fatal crashes would occur during these hours.
While I've been stopped at night, I've never seen a checkpoint after midnight, when midnight is the most dangerous point of any night.
Between 5am and 10am are statistically the safest hours (despite it being the morning rush hour), so it makes no sense for Gardai to call breath tests at these hours.

In reality, the majority of crashes occur on non-urban roads late at night or in the evening rush hours. So why then do we constantly see Gardai mounting checkpoints on urban roads during the statistically safest hours? Because the high-ups are focussing on a different set of statistics and trying to tweak them.

RobAMerc

to be honest I doubt they expected to catch anybody, but the fact you all saw them and came on here spreading the word they are out doing random breath tests is probably exactly the exact reaction they were after.

Just like Bin Laden et al all they need to is give the perceived threat.

Them being there today might stop at least 1 person having a few and driving home after, not a bad thing imo.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

seamus wrote:

I don't think that was his point. He was saying that the Gardai were picking easy targets, rather than focussing their efforts where they are needed most.

I accept fully what you say but having Gardaí perform these duties at other times of the day should not be critisied. What's wrong with enforcing the law while waiting on a call to some other crime? If they are on duty in the morning then why not be proactive rather than sitting around the barracks? One road's as good as another for a drink driving check.

seamus

Danica Ugly Criminal wrote:

If they are on duty in the morning then why not be proactive rather than sitting around the barracks?

I agree. Except that it's not really made clear whether the Gardai do just decide this, or they get sent out to do it.

One road's as good as another for a drink driving check.

Well, I'd have to disagree with that. If they only set up checkpoints on urban roads, people would let loose as soon as they hit the country. And vice-versa. However the stats show that people drive more safely in urban areas, so it makes sense to set up more checkpoints on rural roads than on urban ones.

Random checkpoints shouldn't actually be random - that is, it shouldn't be a matter of "ah sure we'll just set up here for twenty minutes". It should be a planned campaign, with the specific roads being chosen the day of the checkpoint.

Steve

seamus wrote:

Random checkpoints shouldn't actually be random

I thought "random" refers to the fact that they are allowed to breath test motorists at random rather than having to "form an opinion" that somebody was drinking.
This was to close the old loophole that if they stopped you for tax / no lights / any other reason and subsequently found you p1ssed behind the wheel, they couldn't sucessfully prosecute the drunk driving charge.

I don't think it refers to the location or time, this is planned.

GoalsGoneWild

Danica Ugly Criminal wrote:

Here we go again! It's now official you can drive although impaired by alcohol during daylight hours, and exceed the speed limit if you consider the road to be safe at greater speed. All drivers can now ignore temporary speed limits as the authorities just put the signs there because they had nowhere else to store them, and Gardaí will in future totally ignore people commiting minor offences - in fact we will have no crimes below murder, rape, and robbery in excess of €1.5Million from here on in.

How fast does that PopeMobile of yours actually go Danica Ugly Criminal?!?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

GoalsGoneWild wrote:

How fast does that PopeMobile of yours actually go Srameen?!?

dade

Hagar wrote:

If they are that keen why don't they random breath test at night on the roads near the pubs?

Or is that a bit too obvious?

or the ones with car parks maybe? where i grew up the station is a 2 minute walk form the local, never in all the years i lived there did i see them out doing tests on the roads in or around the pub. .

Tony Danza

I have to say I wouldn't say that breath testing in the morning is a waste of time, but I think the majority of resources used for breath testing should be done at night, similarly with speed checks, looking out for dangerous driving because that's when majority of fatal crashes occur. If your driving through traffic at 8 in the morning and your over the legal limit, it's unlikely that your going kill somebody. I'm not defending it, just my 2 cents.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Tony Danza wrote:

If your driving through traffic at 8 in the morning and your over the legal limit, it's unlikely that your going kill somebody.

So we allow drunk drivers each morning on heavy urban traffic and concentrate the breath tests on the motorways, suburban, and rural roads? Great thinking at last!

vorbis

Srameen his point is valid, no need for the smart remarks.
If you're crawling through traffic, the risk of you causing a serious accident is quite small. Obviously you shouldn't be drunk. In terms of priorities though, night time drunk drivers are surely a far greater threat.

Anan1

vorbis wrote:

Srameen his point is valid, no need for the smart remarks.
If you're crawling through traffic, the risk of you causing a serious accident is quite small. Obviously you shouldn't be drunk. In terms of priorities though, night time drunk drivers are surely a far greater threat.

Whilst I do kind of agree with Tony Danza, I have seen more than one dead motorcyclist during the morning rush-hour.

Stark

prospect wrote:

Pulling people for very minor offenses (e.g. entering a bus lane less than 10m from its end to make a left turn) rather than dealing with habitual dangerous driving - Wrong Target - Yes

So now bus lanes are now for "buses, taxis and cars turning left"? I must have missed that alteration to the RotR.

UrbanFox

Stark wrote:

So now bus lanes are now for "buses, taxis and cars turning left"? I must have missed that alteration to the RotR.

Tut tut, you really must keep a sharper look out.

Bus lanes are now used for cars turning left for anything up to one whole kilometre before their turn. I assume that is why all those nice people on the Stilorgan Road use their left indicators so often especially those sweet little daisies going in to UCD.