I understand that technically, by the letter of the law, such a driver would be in violation of the law, yes. My point, which I already brought up and that you side stepped, was that the purpose of the law is to prevent intoxicated driving, but its impact is to forbid drivers from smoking too much, even when they do so fully responsibly with regards to their driving. Two people have responded to me since this all began saying there are in fact tests that can detect the proper products and byproducts to make a far more reasonable judgment. The technology exists, then. It’s just a matter of a willingness to use it and pay for it. I’ve also already said they have ways to assess general impairment, which while obviously imperfect for a variety of reasons, at least actually attempt to assess the true factor. You’ve also ignored my question about what a reasonable false positive rate is with this policy. Sure, drivers may cross the threshold, but if we’ve established that the test isn’t a good test of impairment, what portion of totally unimpaired arrests is acceptable to you? How many unimpaired people are you willing to jail to get safety on the roads? You want people you’ve never met and who have not violated the intent of the law to face serious criminal repercussions to give you a sense of security. What portion of the arrests are you willing to allow them to be?
I understand that technically, by the letter of the law, such a driver would be in violation of the law, yes. My point, which I already brought up and that you side stepped, was that the purpose of the law is to prevent intoxicated driving, but its impact is to forbid drivers from smoking too much, even when they do so fully responsibly with regards to their driving. Two people have responded to me since this all began saying there are in fact tests that can detect the proper products and byproducts to make a far more reasonable judgment. The technology exists, then. It’s just a matter of a willingness to use it and pay for it. I’ve also already said they have ways to assess general impairment, which while obviously imperfect for a variety of reasons, at least actually attempt to assess the true factor. You’ve also ignored my question about what a reasonable false positive rate is with this policy. Sure, drivers may cross the threshold, but if we’ve established that the test isn’t a good test of impairment, what portion of totally unimpaired arrests is acceptable to you? How many unimpaired people are you willing to jail to get safety on the roads? You want people you’ve never met and who have not violated the intent of the law to face serious criminal repercussions to give you a sense of security. What portion of the arrests are you willing to allow them to be?