Four times in three weeks; WTF?

deezagood said :

I agree that morning testing is valid on perhaps a Saturday or Sunday morning, and maybe early morning during the week to catch the drunk-driving-home or drunk-driving-to-work folks … but I still think that a 10am test on a Wednesday morning is probably not going to catch as many people as say a 10pm test on a Friday night. I very rarely see RBT stations set up late on a Friday or Saturday night in Canberra, but maybe that is because I myself am not out as much at that time? I also found the increased incidence of RBT a bit strange (noting that I don’t think this is a bad thing).

while there may be fewer drivers over the limit at these midweek morning times, the volume of traffic in which they drive mean that the chances of their inflicting serious damage [ie injury] is increased – don’t forget, some people work shifts, others have a variety of reasons for flexible working hours, so one shouldn’t assume that just ’cause [jealously] you yourself aren’t under the weather that other drivers aren’t…

i got stopped twice in a few hours by the same copper a few years back – he gave me one look the second time, shook his head and laughed to himself and waved me on. noice.

Cops are tops.

Good work AFP.

As they should

There is NO REASON for DUI!

Good!

I don’t see why they don’t just set up outside a club on a Friday or Saturday night and nab everyone who drives out of the car park.

They did this the other weekend on the south side.

Nabbed quite a few of the locals who live in the area and were driving home.

I agree that morning testing is valid on perhaps a Saturday or Sunday morning, and maybe early morning during the week to catch the drunk-driving-home or drunk-driving-to-work folks … but I still think that a 10am test on a Wednesday morning is probably not going to catch as many people as say a 10pm test on a Friday night. I very rarely see RBT stations set up late on a Friday or Saturday night in Canberra, but maybe that is because I myself am not out as much at that time? I also found the increased incidence of RBT a bit strange (noting that I don’t think this is a bad thing).

Because the clubs are not where the serious long term alcoholics hang out.

They are just (if not more) dangerous as the drunk club crowd.

I’ve had the early morning breath test on the way to work. While I can understand the value of the early morning test, I have to question the return for value of doing it during the middle of the week – surely they’re likely to catch more people on a Sunday/Monday morning and not a Wednesday/Thursday morning? Who goes on a bender early in the week?

Morning tests are critical for spotting punters who are at 0.052% BAC – Best to keep those off the roads.

That said – they are also useful for catching the actual alcoholics, who do drive in the morning – who are tanked on 1/2 a bottle of whatever by 9am – so I am all for it.

Whilst I applaud the increased police vigour, I must question the rationale behind morning tests

In a past life when I used to live in Jindabyne, the local police used to get great results with early morning breath testing – you can’t go to bed at 2.00am and get up at 9.00am and be under the limit if you’ve had 15 or 20 drinks.

That said, Canberra’s not a resort town, but I dare say the real problem alcoholics don’t wait till its dark to get out on the roads – I’m talking about the people who need a bottle of vodka first thing to help them get going – sure testing at 9.00pm will net you the folk who misjudged the number of drinks they’ve had over dinner or who were pushing their luck, but I like the idea that the cops are also going after the hard-core alcoholics who drive drunk as a matter of course.

Jivrashia said :

mooo_cow wrote:

mooo_cow said :

Thou a lot of people that belive they they are save drining after a couple at those times are now getting caught.

Are you under the afluence of incohol?

Haven’t had a c$nt, drinkstable.

In 19 years of driving in Australia I have been breath-tested twice. Once in Bredbo or close enough about 15 years ago. Once in Kingston last year after I was displaying some stupid driving (yep over the limit by a fair whack too I was but they let me off and my bf was clear so he could drive, I still don’t know how that happened, cause I had drank less than him and was trying to do the right thing as he was a 20 yr old P-plater and on a provisional one at that where the limit is zero or maybe .02 at best. But oh well I was wrong and learnt now to just sip one drink over a couple of hours now at least and have a water in between if I’m driving. I was probably far too bold before actually nearly going down for drink-driving and having my boyfriends car impounded for attempting burnouts (I wasn’t really, just giving it heaps on the speed humped pead-crossing out front of Lot 33) and such (which woulda impressed my bf heaps as he was lucky enough to have his car the year before sit in the impound for three months for burnouts) according the policeman. Oh thank you officers for giving me a second chance.

My ex used to be the sober driver years ago for us girls and he got stopped and breathoed a fair few times, given driving round the City and such at late hours.

That is a lot deezagood, considering it’s usually hardly ever. No doubt though it will help discourage the few bold ones left.

I’ve been breath tested at least 70 times over the past 18 years of driving. I reckon it’s a top idea, and encourage the police to continue doing breath testing.

I have been on courses (in fact I’m still there now, just grabbing a coffee in the break room) for the last week on something completely unrelated to stats.
Next week I am back into “actually doing stuff, being wrong is bad” mode.

I salute your nitpickery.

mooo_cow wrote:

mooo_cow said :

Thou a lot of people that belive they they are save drining after a couple at those times are now getting caught.

Are you under the afluence of incohol?

Don’t worry too much, after getting tested 3 times in about a month, I don’t think I’ve been tested here in Canberra for about 10 years.

Skidbladnir: Actually, assuming every driver is equally likely to be the one tested by each test, the probability of getting tested in a year is only 32%. Stats and probability is tricky…

I’d say it would be a mix of Skid’s comments and Danman’s comments. Alot of people don’t realise that they can still be over the limit the morning after.

peterh said :

good to see that there are coppers out there looking for the asinine idiots who persist in driving under the influence. four times in 3 weeks? that is great.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost-benefit_analysis

People tend to belive that they are fine if they drive at certain times of the day, ie 5am or 10am the next morning, what I belive the Poilce may be doing is hitting the times that normally are not covered becase they are considered low risk times. Thou a lot of people that belive they they are save drining after a couple at those times are now getting caught.

good to see that there are coppers out there looking for the asinine idiots who persist in driving under the influence. four times in 3 weeks? that is great.

Maybe there’s a new batch of recruits… they tend to do heaps of RBT practice during the day

I was on my first at 10am on Sunday celebrating the Socceroos successful entry into the world cup. Legless by 1pm..

As such, based on a sample of one person, any driving that day would have been illegal.

or time/day for that matter

The random in RBT refers to the selection of the vehicles on approact to the location – not the actual location itself.

Long weekend.
People still pissed and driving home.

Yep. it happens.

Hair of the dog is becoming popular again? Beer on cereal?

ACT Policing make ~100,000 breath tests each financial year on behalf of the ACT.
(The last report I can find is for FY 2006-2007: 100883 breath tests)
There were estimates of 210,000 registered cars in the ACT for that same period.
Assuming the sampling rate remains the same, you have a 50% change of being RBT-ed in the ACT any given year.

But I believe that the RBT programs aren’t purely random across geography\timeframe, (Why put an RBT unit out in the forests of Namadgi National Park at 3am on a Sunday?), so you may just be part of a set that they were using as a sample.

1030hrs weekdays in commercial\governmental areas seems more like a method of smoothing out a population to arrive at something closer to a national average, while still picking up a smallish number of people still recovering from the night before.
If previous campaigns have been too successful and no ‘smoothing’ occurs, when it comes time for national reporting it makes the ACT look like a population of drink-driving fools, instead of merely being led by drink-driving fools.

It’s cold, a whisky breakfast is the only thing getting me out of bed in the mornings these days.

Why do people assume that no one “sleeps off” a boozy night only to drive th enext morning whilst still over the legal limit.

Drink driving occurs around the clock – just because its 12 hours after your last drink does not mean you are sober.