The mystique Americans have built around checking whether someone is drunk is so weird to me.
Over here you take a breath test. It’s not optional. You breathe into the tube and either carry on or get fined and sleep it off before moving on.
I understand that there is some weird hangup about compulsory checks in the US for some reason, as part of the weirdo libertarian nonsense they huff over there, but I’ve never understood the logic of how spending fifteen minutes having a cop decide whether they want to shoot you is the better alternative.
Normally breathalyzer is the first thing they ask from you. If you are actually sober, and you refuse that test and then you fail a field sobriety test that’s completely on you. I don’t see how the right to refuse the breathalyzer test is the problem here.
I don’t get it. There is a test that takes ten seconds blowing into a tube. Why is “the right to refuse the breathalyzer” a thing? What’s the point if you’re still going to get tested in a less accurate way that takes longer? What right or freedom is being preserved there other than the right to waste everybody’s time and risk a worse outcome? Why does it matter if it’s “on you”? There are other people involved, from the cop performing the test to whoever else needs to get stopped or tested after you to potentially the public interest of not having drunk drivers zooming around. Why is it “being on you” relevant?
It’s mostly trivial, but man, it is such a microcosm of weird-ass American/anarchocapitalist thinking about public/private interactions.
The mystique Americans have built around checking whether someone is drunk is so weird to me.
Over here you take a breath test. It’s not optional. You breathe into the tube and either carry on or get fined and sleep it off before moving on.
I understand that there is some weird hangup about compulsory checks in the US for some reason, as part of the weirdo libertarian nonsense they huff over there, but I’ve never understood the logic of how spending fifteen minutes having a cop decide whether they want to shoot you is the better alternative.
Normally breathalyzer is the first thing they ask from you. If you are actually sober, and you refuse that test and then you fail a field sobriety test that’s completely on you. I don’t see how the right to refuse the breathalyzer test is the problem here.
I don’t get it. There is a test that takes ten seconds blowing into a tube. Why is “the right to refuse the breathalyzer” a thing? What’s the point if you’re still going to get tested in a less accurate way that takes longer? What right or freedom is being preserved there other than the right to waste everybody’s time and risk a worse outcome? Why does it matter if it’s “on you”? There are other people involved, from the cop performing the test to whoever else needs to get stopped or tested after you to potentially the public interest of not having drunk drivers zooming around. Why is it “being on you” relevant?
It’s mostly trivial, but man, it is such a microcosm of weird-ass American/anarchocapitalist thinking about public/private interactions.