Point oh give me a break.....

[Outdoorsfool]

Quote from Lake Sun Leader story: If the bill does make it through the session, it would lower the legal limit for boating while intoxicated from .10 blood alcohol content to .08. The legal limit would mirror the same limit drivers of motor vehicles face.

The bill would also stiffen the penalties, including banning repeat offenders from the waterways. Despite an aggressive crackdown on BWIs and ongoing educational efforts to encourage designated drivers, alcohol use continues to be a major issue on Lake of the Ozarks, Humphrey said.

Statistically, alcohol is estimated to be a contributing factor in more than 50 percent of fatalities and 30 percent of injuries related to boating activities which are caused by drivers under the influence of alcohol, according to reports.

Link to the article, if anyone wants to read it Lake Sun Leader

Only 30 percent of injuries are alcohol related, so why are they going after THAT aspect?? Why not go after inexperience, stupidity, laziness or just plain inattention as obviously those factors accout for the other 70%?? Just the other day an adult had TWO toddlers/kids on a PWC. As they were mooring to a boat, a 3 year old "accidentally" hit the throttle causing a mooring rope to wrap around and sever the arm of a 4 year old. Guess what...alcohol was NOT a factor, but that 4 year old still lost her arm.

Does .02 difference in a person's blood alcohol level make any real difference in the level of impairment? Helll, let's just change the law to .01 and be done with it. Test over that and lose your privleges/license for life. The way it stands now, you can't go out for dinner and have a couple of drinks or split a bottle of wine without being over the legal limit, yet the vast majority of folks aren't impaired. Drivers playing their God-awful eardrum splitting music, talking on their cellphones, watching videos and other stupid chit I think are more of a danger today than drunks.

Can you really "ban" a person from Missouri waterways? Helll, I ain't even sure you can ban them from operating a boat, considering there is no boating license...which I've heard is the Water Patrol's next big push so they have something to start taking away from folks.

[Warmouth]

I had read that report on the 4 yr old. Did she really lose her arm? If so, that is horrible.

[Big John]

ODF you missed the more important fact "Statistically, alcohol is estimated to be a contributing factor in more than 50 percent of fatalities"

[Outdoorsfool]

BJ - I didn't miss that fact, but so fornicating what? Are you telling me that those 50% of fatal accidents were caused because the dude was at .10 and they wouldn't have happened at .08. Besides, what about the other 41-49% of all fatal accidents? I'm all for locking somebody up if they are drinking and driving and injure/kill somebody. But imposing unrealistic limits on permitted alcohol consumption and then imposing harsh penalties because they are caught at .11 or .12 in a big brother style road/water block is just stupid. Lowering .1 to .08 will do nothing other than put more people on paper and bring more $$ into the govt., period. There are also statistics that show sleep-deprived drivers, inattention and use of prescription medications are just as dangerous, if not more so, than alcohol. Where are those laws? And don't even get me started on the stupid assed folks that go after drunks in canoes.



Dave - I have not heard if they recovered and/or reattached the arm. All the news article and WP report said was the arm was severed. I'm not a doctor/pathologist, but I'm guessing if the arm was completely severed and fell in the water that it would sink.



A parent can be stupid and cause injury to their child, but as long as they are sober it's okay. I fornicating hope that parent has nightmares about the pain their stupidity caused to their child for the rest of their life.

[Triton X2]

You think it would ODF? On another thing, just how much more would a person have to drink to get their BAC up .02%.
Couldnt be much could it?

[Outdoorsfool]

Triton - I really have no idea. Have heard WP officers say that bodies generally sink...or at least do not float on top of the water...until decomposition begins and gases bloat the body cavity. That's why they drag for bodies in early recovery efforts.

That's my point....lowering .1 to .08 is doing nothing to address the problem. It is simply to pacify the MADD folks, make the politicians look good and bring more $$/control of people to government agencies. I'd be willing to bet within 5-10 years they will be pushing for .06 limits.

ODF - Former member of DAMM.... Drunks Against MADD Mothers!

[Big John]

ODF why should a boater not be drunk at the same level as a motorist, are drunks on boats not as dangerous to other boaters or their passengers? There are laws regarding prescription meds and if you have an accident while under the influence of those meds you are ticketed. As far as "Can you really "ban" a person from Missouri waterways?" yes they can the same way they can stop people from driving drunk it is called "put them in jail". Anyone ticketed will be "on paper" and will be punished accordingly. If a person is picked up for DWI twice in NYS they go to jail for 1 year and so it should be for boaters.

[Triton X2]

Wonder where Redleg is?

[Outdoorsfool]

BJ - They shouldn't, my thoughts on the BWI laws are exactly the same as those for the road. .1 to .08 is stupid and is nothing more than a dog and pony show. It does not serve the intended purpose, which is to reduce instances of BWI/DWI and alcohol-related traffic crashes.

You can jail someone, but you cannot ban them from the waterways. That is a stupid, unenforceable concept. You MIGHT be able to restrict their boat operation ability, but I even question that without implementation of boating license legislation. However, you cannot "ban someone from the waterways" as it states. That would mean they could not be in a boat operated by someone else or even at a swim beach.
I'm all for strict BWI/DWI laws and mandatory imprisonment for any wreck that injures/kills someone. However, you will not convince me that a crash where the driver is at .081 was a result of alcohol when a wreck where driver is at .078 is not alcohol related. They are picking arbitrary numbers and different people at a specific level are affected differently. I know folks I'd ride with at .15 and I know folks I wouldn't ride with if they were stone cold sober.

Two hundredths of a percent does not result in intoxication/impairment and reducing the legal driving limit by that amount does not serve the intended purpose. That's like saying tougher gun laws will take guns out of the hands of criminals.

[Big John]

Jailing is banning, with the age of pda's it would be easy to pickup repeat offenders and put them in jail. I am sure the "banning" is for operation of a boat and if they were smart about it they could put a block on registering a boat in the persons name and/or use the persons drivers license rather than making folks get a boat license. That might even be better, if a person may lose his drivers license he MAY think twice about drinking and boating. If the boat is not owned by the person who is caught under this law and he/she doesn't have a drivers license they could go after the boat owner, which would entice that person NOT to allow the drunk to operate his boat again.

[Roscoe Dog]

A drunk is going to drive with or without a license so taking it away is nothing to a drunk. A guy down the street got put in jail for repeat drunk driving but that was after 5 times. Hes out and drinking and driving again, as a drunk will. As ODF is saying,is that lowering it that little bit is not making a difference. It just makes it seem like they are doing something to please some people.

[Warmouth]

I wish I had a way to measure blood alcohol levels at home. It'd be interesting to see just how much of what drinks will make you legally loopy.

On a side note, I've known a few drunks with multiple DWI's, and they will keep risking driving without a liscense. I don't know what it is about them that makes them like that, but I've seen the same guys doing it over and over. One of them had lost his liscense for 5+yrs, and I never knew he didn't have it, until he got it back, and was bragging about driving that long without one.

[Outdoorsfool]

MoCraig - I'm not going into a big argument about your copy & paste stats/research. Your paste doesn't indicate WHO did the research. Stats and research can be skewed to the whichever direction they want to take them.

Studies using an automated device that simulates actual flight conditions have shown pilot performance to be impaired at BACs as low as 0.04 percent (4,5) and to remain impaired for as long as 14 hours after pilots reached BACs between 0.10 percent and 0.12 percent (4,6).

I find this REALLY hard to believe. Using my body weight, 2 drinks in an hour would put me at .38 and 5 would put me at .098. Even by most standards, a body will generally process a drink in an hour, so within 2-5 hours the body would have processed all the alcohol and BAC would be nil or almost nil. So to say that those drinks that have been processed by your body will still be affecting your body for the next 7-12 hours is pure horsecrap, IMO.

Dave - When we were in college, a company went around putting breathalyzers in the bar. For a quarter, you could check your BAC to see if you were under the legal limit to drive. Well, as college ideas normally go, we took it the other direction. We would sit there and drink to see who could register the HIGHEST BAC!

[Outdoorsfool]

MoCraig - I cannot argue with anything in that last post. Believe it or not, I agree. I think that is kind of my point. Why such hoopla over lowering it from .1 to .08....that .02 makes little or no difference in the level of impairment. Like Roscoe and I said, it's nothing but a dog and pony show to appease certain groups of folks and make themselves look good. I know folks that can function better at .15 than others can at .05, yet the one with .15 is illegal and the other is legal. Then there's the whole argument of whether or not breathalyzer was calibrated properly, working properly, etc..

Give all cops dash and video cams, catch the amount of impairment on tape and use that as evidence, not some arbitrary number that has no real meaning from one person to the next.



edit:

Regardless, as soon as you take to a busy waterway or road while drinking, you've also made a decision to put others at risk.

Cell phones, applying make up, eating, changing radio stations/CD's, aggressive driving, etc., I believe all put others in risk just as much or more than the occasional drunk driver. Look at how many people run red lights anymore. Watch other drivers while you're outand see how many people are actually paying attention to DRIVING and how many are doing other things. It's fornicating scary! I ride a motorcycle, so first and foremost I watch ALL others first. I'm not talking about just watching their vehicles. I'm looking at the DRIVER to see what they are doing and where they are looking.

[Outdoorsfool]

This is the kind of fornicating bullshit that law enforcement needs to focus on, instead of worrying about two hundredths of one percent BAC or the occasional drunk driver. (Most DWI check points 2-3% of drivers stopped or LESS).

Mo. toddler's killer gets 7-year term
ASSOCIATED PRESS
05/18/2007

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) -- A St. Joseph man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for the death of a 17-month-old boy.

Buchanan County Circuit Judge Daniel Kellogg sentenced Christopher M. Kerns, 26, Thursday. He was found guilty in March of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Caden Blanton, the son of his then-girlfriend, in December 2005.

Kellogg allowed Kerns to remain free on $250,000 bond pending an appeal.

If the sentence is upheld, Kerns likely would be eligible for parole two years into the seven-year sentence. Kerns also was fined $3,000.

Prosecutors say Kerns punched Caden in the abdomen after the boy bit Kerns on the finger. An autopsy showed Caden had 38 bruises when he died from internal bleeding from a ruptured small intestine.

Caden's parents, Joshua Blanton and Heather Rich, face felony child endangerment charges in his death. Prosecutors allege they failed to provide a safe environment for the boy. Both are scheduled for trial in September.

------

Information from: St. Joseph News-Press, http://www.stjoenews-press.com

I can't believe you can kill a child and get off with a $3000 fine and 2 years of prison. Dude was only sentenced to 7 years to begin with, but will probably only serve 2. Are you fornicating kidding me??? The most indefensible people in our society have no better protection in the law than THIS??? I hope his cell buddies rape this rotten POS twice daily and then kill him the night before he's due to be released.