Brickbat: Bicycle Cops

Red Bluff, California, police set up a "sobriety checkpoint" one Friday night. They screened 240 drivers over a five-hour period and issued citations to two drivers for driving with a suspended license and two others for driving with a revoked license. They cited a fifth driver for an outstanding warrant. They didn't nab anyone for DUI, but they did cite one man who rode his bicycle into the checkpoint area for suspicion of riding a bicycle under the influence.

Brickbat Archive

Comments

[Whiterun Guard]

This is what we want, this is what we deserve.

[NebulousFocus]

A DUI checkpoint and they site him for suspicion of RUI?

[Untermensch]

?who road [sic] his bicycle into the checkpoint?

Not to be picky, but are you absolutely sure it wasn't the case that he rode his bicycle into the checkpoint?

[Ted S.]

Damn you for beating me to the punch!

[WWNGD?]

I think this shows an improvement in law enforcement and the work that the police do, no one was pulled out of their car and beaten, tasered, or pepper-sprayed.

[db]

There is a DUI checkpoint that frequently gets set up about 2 miles from my house. It is located on the outgoing lane leaving a "dry town" (yes, there are still a few of these in PA). Usually I can tell far enough in advance that it's there that I can take a detour. It really sucks because if I go out in the evening to get something, often on my way back the checkpoint is active. Who the fuck wants to get pulled over on their way home all the time? I suspect that, being on the outgoing lane of a dry town, they get few DUIs and more expired licenses/warrants/etc. It's really just a transparent attempt at a general dragnet.

[Pound. Head. On. Desk.]

Twenty-something years ago they used to set one up near my (then) house with predictable regularity. Sometimes I would be bored...
"Have you been drinking Mr. P.H.O.D.?"
"All day, officer." (Pass field sobriety test and breathalizer.)
"You haven't been drinking!"
"Yes, I have... just not alcohol."
Shocking how slow they were to learn to ask the right questions.

[Fist of Etiquette]

If you don't want subject to warrantless searches you shouldn't drive on the government's road.

[WWNGD?]

If you are not doing anything wrong you have everything to worry about.

[db]

You shouldn't post on the government's Internet.

[Bee Tagger]

They screened 240 drivers over a five-hour period and issued citations to two drivers for driving with a suspended license and two others for driving with a revoked license.

BUT WHO ARE THEY VOTING FOR?

This new alliance between Reason-Rupe and local law enforcement is starting to seem like a bad idea.

[SugarFree]

Operating anything while drunk is a DUI in Kentucky, even riding a horse on private property. And even if it weren't a DUI to ride a bike in CA, I bet they still could have popped him for PI. The looseness of the PI laws in Kentucky have been stretched to people stepping out of a bar to have a cigarette.

[Gray Ghost]

SF, let me know when they start busting people for PI inside the bar.

God, the TABC is an absolutely worthless organization. And Rehnquist's shade needs to be on a roasting spit for the abortion of legal reasoning that was Michigan v. Sitz.

(Checkpoints violate the 4th Amendment, but drunk driving. And fried chicken. And tits.)

[R C Dean]

But, overtime was paid, so mission accomplished!

[Death Rock and Skull]

Suspicion for riding a bicycle under the influence? Did they even use any means to determine whether he actually met their definition of influence?

I drove buzzed and tired once, and I felt bad about doing it. I ride a bicycle drunk and or high all the time, because it is fun and not a horrible thing to do. Fuck the police.

[Jason S.]

Good for Red Bluff. Checkpoint Critical Mass biking events, too. Arrest them all.

Can't wait 'til Gary Johnson is impeached and the Libertarian congress is voted out. Good.