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There is a growing misconception that it is the role of the government to "keep their citizens safe". Although that it is often the intention of legislation to

There is a growing misconception that it is the role of the government to "keep their citizens safe". Although that it is often the intention of legislation to prevent behaviour which may lead to unsafe situations. For example, making it illegal to drink and drive. You can arrest someone for breaking the law, but never can you arrest someone right up to the point of breaking the law. For example, You cannot arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket, or even being asleep in the car while drunk. This is the problem with the government demanding to read all communications... the idea that they have the right in order to prevent you committing a crime. Its not only impossible to prevent someone committing a crime (anyone can snap and do truly horrible things without prior communique), its insane to think that you can arrest someone for pre-crime. The role of the government is to pass laws. The role of the police and the justice system is to enforce these laws. It is not their job to spy on all their citizens for events which historically kill fractions of a percent compared to something as trivial as car accidents.

beaconstudios 9y ago
actually, funnily enough in the UK you can be arrested for being "drunk in charge of a motor vehicle" even if you aren't in the driver's seat. That can apparently include sleeping one off in the back seat of your car.
- onion2k 9y ago
  Amusingly, here in the UK, we also have the crime of "drunk in charge of a carriage" which has been used to prosecute people for being drunk with all manner of things from bicycles to horses.
  - gregn610 9y ago
    "Wanton or Furious riding" is also an offence.
  - gsnedders 9y ago
    Note this is English law (not the nonexistent UK law); this is a simple application of the mischief rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischief_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischief_rule).
- DropbearRob 9y ago
  as I mentioned in an above reply.. what about campervans?
  - beaconstudios 9y ago
    I'm no legal expert but I think when they're parked up in an appropriate place (private land, layby, that kind of thing) they're considered a temporary residence? Who knows with our convoluted english common law!
    - TheGrumpyBrit 9y ago
      It's very much still a vehicle, but there's a statutory defence to Drunk in Charge if you can demonstrate that there was no likelihood of driving while you were over the limit. Having a bed in the back and being parked in a suitable place to spend the night should be more than enough to demonstrate that unless you're seen to be climbing into the drivers seat. In the UK, this may be your own private domicile, but you can still be harrassed.
fredley 9y ago
Unfortunately, there's a misconception underlying this one that there are 'good people' and 'bad people', and the role of Government is to protect the former from the latter. This of course flies in the face of the reality that crime is committed by otherwise ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances. Under this rhetoric - widely subscribed to by the right wing and tabloid press, it seems a logical step that the role of Government should be to impede 'bad people' as much as possible - "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is an obvious corollary from this position too.
- dm319 9y ago
  I find this comment particularly interesting. I have a suspicion that believing in good and bad people is a product of fairytales and religion. I've never quite understood why authoritarianism, religion and the right seem to go together, maybe this is part of puzzle.
  - fredley 9y ago
    I don't think religion etc. is to blame personally, it's a simple extension of believing that I am good, and I am like her, and she is good, and we are not like them. We never see ourselves as the people who could tip over the edge.
  - waqf 9y ago
    Fairytales and religion wouldn't be so popular if people didn't already have an innate desire to believe in good and bad people.
    - ebcode 9y ago
      Then again, people wouldn't have an innate desire to believe in good and bad people if fairytales and religion weren't already so popular.
cmdkeen 9y ago
In the UK* it is an offence to be "drunk in charge of a vehicle" so you absolutely can be arrested and charged for being asleep whilst drunk in a vehicle. You'll be having to defend yourself in court as to whether it was likely that would could have driven it drunk. In the same way reading communications can be perfectly legal and is often helpful in establishing conspiracy cases. Accepting that Governments can legally intercept communications with some form of due process shouldn't be viewed as going after "pre-crime". It has always been the case before now that legal interception powers also enable illegal Government (or indeed non-state) snooping, that should be dealt with by robust interventions by an independent judiciary. * Road Traffic Law is one of the relatively few criminal areas that is UK wide
- DropbearRob 9y ago
  well I'll be damned... What is the legal definition of being in charge? There is no legal definition for the term "in charge" so each case will depend on its exact circumstances and facts. Generally, a Defendant is "in charge" if he was the owner/in possession of the vehicle or had recently driven it. He is not in charge if it is being driven by another person or is "a great distance" from the vehicle. Matters are more complicated where a person is sitting in the vehicle or "otherwise involved with it". In charge can include attempting to gain entry to the vehicle and failing, having keys to the vehicle, having intention to take control of the vehicle or even "being near the vehicle". This opens a WHOLE can of worms for me as I do live in the UK.. and I regularly get drunk and sleep in my campervan. According to this particular interpretation, all campervan owners who get drunk and sleep in the van can be arrested. Im thinking that due to there is no legal definition of "in charge" that this could definitely be argued in court.
  - kagamine 9y ago
    Like everything in UK law it is interpretation (of a police officer and a judge and your defense) and any given circumstance. If you sleep in the back of a camper van with the key in the glove box and the doors locked a police officer would be hard pushed to convict you of attempting to drive. Don't freak out just yet. Now go out of the vehicle and stand still for a while on a dark night. You are now loitering with intent (to burglarize perhaps). Now put a reflective jacket on over your dark hoodie; you are now absolved of suspicion. Get back in the camper van and have a peaceful 40. Just about anything is illegal with the wrong attitude. In the UK, my experience has been to just talk to the police and be honest, they're usually quite smart.
J-dawg 9y ago
I happened to catch a Radio 4 documentary [0] on Sunday about the government's "Prevent" strategy, which aims to find evidence of extremism in places such as schools and "nip terrorism in the bud". It featured several worrying stories (including a school calling the police because a boy was talking about a toy gun he'd been given as a present [1]). The most worrying part was when they interviewed a senior police officer and he actually said words to the effect of: "We are operating in a pre-criminal space." And went on to attempt to justify retaining people's data when they have intervened in this way. So they are now actually talking openly about pre-crime, and using people's children against them. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08yp16m http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08yp16m [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/27/bedfordshire-local-education-authority-admits-racial-discrimination-brothers-toy-gun-school-police https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/27/bedfordshire...
- biofox 9y ago
  I have no problem, in principle, with the prevent strategy. If impressionable children are at risk of being brainwashed into a dangerous ideology, then the state should step in, just as it does with any other form of abuse. Hasn't "pre-crime" always been a part of policing, in the form of intelligence gathering and crime prevention? My main concern is schools, and (increasingly) the police acting irrationally and disproportionately.
  - openfuture 9y ago
    I feel it is the government that are brainwashing impressionable children with dangerous ideology and I'd prefer it if the stepped out.
  - J-dawg 9y ago
    That's an interesting counter-argument, thanks. But I still don't think I agree with you. The problem here is that it's left up to police to decide what is a "dangerous ideology". It's not something that you can decide in advance and make objective criteria for. The potential for police to abuse these powers (either through corruption or simply being over-zealous) is enormous. This is how you end up with a Green Party politician being added to the register of "Domestic Extremists", to give one of many examples.
cr1895 9y ago
>For example, You cannot arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket, or even being asleep in the car while drunk. An aside, but this is not true. "According to Alabama state law, Hand was deemed to be in “constructive possession” of the vehicle, and although he wasn’t driving and the vehicle was parked, the keys being in the car was the determinant that triggered the arrest."" https://www.tidesports.com/dashawn-hand-sleeping-car-not-driving-time-dui-arrest/ https://www.tidesports.com/dashawn-hand-sleeping-car-not-dri...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- DropbearRob 9y ago
  from the article. "Hand was parked in a near-campus parking lot, sitting in the driver’s seat with the headlights on and the vehicle cranked, but was asleep with the car in park." "The vehicle cranked" is the key there.. he is shown to be operating the vehicle while under the influence.. If he was asleep in the car without it being on, I doubt they would have a case.
  - cr1895 9y ago
    That was just the first one that came up. Critically, it's however the authorities (and it seems to depend on the state) define "operating" the vehicle. But more to my point, you can still be arrested for DUI while not literally driving/sleeping in the backseat. Given the number of law firm search results that pop up, I'm guessing it's often a way people fight DUIs. So maybe these don't stick.
    - DropbearRob 9y ago
      ok ok, perhaps this was a bad example of being in a situation which is legal but illegal adjacent, because it seems in some cases it is illegal to sleep in your car while drunk, or even being near your car while drunk. but the crux of my argument remains valid. in those cases you've broken the law (past tense) because in this case those scenarios are considered a breach of the law. My point remains that the role of government is to pass laws, and the role of law enforcement is to enforce those laws by capturing people who break the law. NOT to arrest people who "might" break the law, because that group contains everyone.
csomar 9y ago
Well driving while drank is pre-crime too.
- choward 9y ago
  Exactly. It's just trying to prevent you from breaking motor vehicle laws like driving down the wrong side of the road.
solatic 9y ago
> There is a growing misconception that it is the role of the government to "keep their citizens safe". What misconception? This is the basis of the social contract between society and its government, to safeguard the natural rights of society, the foremost of which (Life, among Life, Liberty, Property/Pursuit of happiness) is the safety and security of members of society. Read up on Locke and Rousseau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract > The role of the government is to pass laws This is a tautology. Legislation is but a means in which some forms of government (excepting, for instance, dictatorships) act to secure the natural rights of society. Legislation is not a goal in and of itself for government. > This is the problem with the government... the idea that [the government should try] to prevent you [from] committing a crime See natural right #2 - the right to liberty, which in context means the right to act as you please until you actually cross the line by committing a crime. The right to liberty is not mutually exclusive to the right to life; legitimate governments act to secure both in tandem.
- ue_ 9y ago
  Why do you think this social contract persists to this day, or if it ever did? Locke and Rousseau were theorisers. Do you really think governments, least of all the UK government, is founded on the ideas of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Even those which claim to be in some way like the US seem to be doing nothing toward these principles. So I think GP's point stands. What relevance does this social contract have when we see it is violated all the time? >act to secure the natural rights of society. This is obviously not the case, as evidenced by the fact that governments act against securing rights we previously held, for example censorship and invasion of privacy. >See natural right #2 - the right to liberty Natural rights are a funny thing - everyone claims they exist yet I see no evidence that they do (or even should), they change depending on who you ask, and various countries have their own ideas of what they mean. What you call "legitimate" is wholly based on your own opinion of it. Proudhon (whom you must be familiar with) particularly took issue with the right of property in the French republican constitution of his day. He noted that it is unlike the rights of equality and justice, too. I'm all for theorising and implementing policy based on our philosophical investigation, but it's not clear to me that the investigation is valid, and that it has been implemented to a sufficient degree. To say our governments are based on the ideas of freedom put forth by Locke is as farcical as saying the Soviet Union was based on the ideas put forward on Socialism by Marx in his criticism of political economy.
mtgx 9y ago
> This is the problem with the government demanding to read all communications... the idea that they have the right in order to prevent you committing a crime. Its not only impossible to prevent someone committing a crime (anyone can snap and do truly horrible things without prior communique), its insane to think that you can arrest someone for pre-crime. This is exactly what Bruce Schneier saw with his "data mining for terrorists" essay more than a decade ago. Trying to prevent terrorist attacks is impossible if you rely on data mining alone, because of all the false positives it can create, making it useless in actually preventing real attacks. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_for.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_f...
gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago
In the UK being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle is a crime. 'In charge of' includes for example being near the vehicle with the keys in your possession and certainly includes being asleep in the vehicle. If charged with this crime you are required to prove (to a balance of probabilities standard i.e. about 50:50) that you were not going to try to drive it until you were sober. NB I don't necessarily agree with the legal situation in the UK I'm merely stating the reality.
salad77 9y ago
> or example, You cannot arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket, or even being asleep in the car while drunk. Yes you can. In the UK (since we're discussing the UK, that's important), the offense is being in charge of a motor vehicle whilst incapacitated by drink or drugs. Incapacitated is defined as being over the limit defined in law (80mg in England/Wales and 50mg in Scotland - don't cross the border after a drink!). Mere possession of the keys or being inside the vehicle [alone] or sitting in the driving seat is treated exactly the same as driving drunk. Some pubs will offer a 'hold your keys' service where you put the keys behind the bar and come back the next day to collect the keys and car when you're below the limit for driving.
Zhenya 9y ago
While I agree with you in general, the following point is incorrect: >>or even being asleep in the car while drunk. If the keys are in the ignition, you are DUI.[0] Even sleeping in the car is also considered a DUI in some states[1]. Beware! [0] http://caselaw.findlaw.com/co-supreme-court/1006683.html http://caselaw.findlaw.com/co-supreme-court/1006683.html [1] http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2015/07/how-to-sleep-it-off-in-your-car-without-getting-a-dui.html http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2015/07/how-to-sleep-it-off...
inlined 9y ago
I think outlawing conspiracy to commit a crime is the (potentially) reasonable way governments have bridged the gap and enforced prevention.
thaumasiotes 9y ago
> You can arrest someone for breaking the law, but never can you arrest someone right up to the point of breaking the law. Attempted murder is criminalized, but that's a weak counterpoint. Criminal conspiracy, however, is exactly the crime you're claiming can't exist.

beaconstudios 9y ago

actually, funnily enough in the UK you can be arrested for being "drunk in charge of a motor vehicle" even if you aren't in the driver's seat. That can apparently include sleeping one off in the back seat of your car.

onion2k 9y ago
Amusingly, here in the UK, we also have the crime of "drunk in charge of a carriage" which has been used to prosecute people for being drunk with all manner of things from bicycles to horses.
- gregn610 9y ago
  "Wanton or Furious riding" is also an offence.
- gsnedders 9y ago
  Note this is English law (not the nonexistent UK law); this is a simple application of the mischief rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischief_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischief_rule).
DropbearRob 9y ago
as I mentioned in an above reply.. what about campervans?
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  I'm no legal expert but I think when they're parked up in an appropriate place (private land, layby, that kind of thing) they're considered a temporary residence? Who knows with our convoluted english common law!
  - TheGrumpyBrit 9y ago
    It's very much still a vehicle, but there's a statutory defence to Drunk in Charge if you can demonstrate that there was no likelihood of driving while you were over the limit. Having a bed in the back and being parked in a suitable place to spend the night should be more than enough to demonstrate that unless you're seen to be climbing into the drivers seat. In the UK, this may be your own private domicile, but you can still be harrassed.

fredley 9y ago

Unfortunately, there's a misconception underlying this one that there are 'good people' and 'bad people', and the role of Government is to protect the former from the latter. This of course flies in the face of the reality that crime is committed by otherwise ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances. Under this rhetoric - widely subscribed to by the right wing and tabloid press, it seems a logical step that the role of Government should be to impede 'bad people' as much as possible - "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is an obvious corollary from this position too.

dm319 9y ago
I find this comment particularly interesting. I have a suspicion that believing in good and bad people is a product of fairytales and religion. I've never quite understood why authoritarianism, religion and the right seem to go together, maybe this is part of puzzle.
- fredley 9y ago
  I don't think religion etc. is to blame personally, it's a simple extension of believing that I am good, and I am like her, and she is good, and we are not like them. We never see ourselves as the people who could tip over the edge.
- waqf 9y ago
  Fairytales and religion wouldn't be so popular if people didn't already have an innate desire to believe in good and bad people.
  - ebcode 9y ago
    Then again, people wouldn't have an innate desire to believe in good and bad people if fairytales and religion weren't already so popular.

cmdkeen 9y ago

In the UK* it is an offence to be "drunk in charge of a vehicle" so you absolutely can be arrested and charged for being asleep whilst drunk in a vehicle. You'll be having to defend yourself in court as to whether it was likely that would could have driven it drunk. In the same way reading communications can be perfectly legal and is often helpful in establishing conspiracy cases. Accepting that Governments can legally intercept communications with some form of due process shouldn't be viewed as going after "pre-crime". It has always been the case before now that legal interception powers also enable illegal Government (or indeed non-state) snooping, that should be dealt with by robust interventions by an independent judiciary. * Road Traffic Law is one of the relatively few criminal areas that is UK wide

DropbearRob 9y ago
well I'll be damned... What is the legal definition of being in charge? There is no legal definition for the term "in charge" so each case will depend on its exact circumstances and facts. Generally, a Defendant is "in charge" if he was the owner/in possession of the vehicle or had recently driven it. He is not in charge if it is being driven by another person or is "a great distance" from the vehicle. Matters are more complicated where a person is sitting in the vehicle or "otherwise involved with it". In charge can include attempting to gain entry to the vehicle and failing, having keys to the vehicle, having intention to take control of the vehicle or even "being near the vehicle". This opens a WHOLE can of worms for me as I do live in the UK.. and I regularly get drunk and sleep in my campervan. According to this particular interpretation, all campervan owners who get drunk and sleep in the van can be arrested. Im thinking that due to there is no legal definition of "in charge" that this could definitely be argued in court.
- kagamine 9y ago
  Like everything in UK law it is interpretation (of a police officer and a judge and your defense) and any given circumstance. If you sleep in the back of a camper van with the key in the glove box and the doors locked a police officer would be hard pushed to convict you of attempting to drive. Don't freak out just yet. Now go out of the vehicle and stand still for a while on a dark night. You are now loitering with intent (to burglarize perhaps). Now put a reflective jacket on over your dark hoodie; you are now absolved of suspicion. Get back in the camper van and have a peaceful 40. Just about anything is illegal with the wrong attitude. In the UK, my experience has been to just talk to the police and be honest, they're usually quite smart.

J-dawg 9y ago

I happened to catch a Radio 4 documentary [0] on Sunday about the government's "Prevent" strategy, which aims to find evidence of extremism in places such as schools and "nip terrorism in the bud". It featured several worrying stories (including a school calling the police because a boy was talking about a toy gun he'd been given as a present [1]). The most worrying part was when they interviewed a senior police officer and he actually said words to the effect of: "We are operating in a pre-criminal space." And went on to attempt to justify retaining people's data when they have intervened in this way. So they are now actually talking openly about pre-crime, and using people's children against them. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08yp16m http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08yp16m [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/27/bedfordshire-local-education-authority-admits-racial-discrimination-brothers-toy-gun-school-police https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/27/bedfordshire...

biofox 9y ago
I have no problem, in principle, with the prevent strategy. If impressionable children are at risk of being brainwashed into a dangerous ideology, then the state should step in, just as it does with any other form of abuse. Hasn't "pre-crime" always been a part of policing, in the form of intelligence gathering and crime prevention? My main concern is schools, and (increasingly) the police acting irrationally and disproportionately.
- openfuture 9y ago
  I feel it is the government that are brainwashing impressionable children with dangerous ideology and I'd prefer it if the stepped out.
- J-dawg 9y ago
  That's an interesting counter-argument, thanks. But I still don't think I agree with you. The problem here is that it's left up to police to decide what is a "dangerous ideology". It's not something that you can decide in advance and make objective criteria for. The potential for police to abuse these powers (either through corruption or simply being over-zealous) is enormous. This is how you end up with a Green Party politician being added to the register of "Domestic Extremists", to give one of many examples.

cr1895 9y ago

>For example, You cannot arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket, or even being asleep in the car while drunk. An aside, but this is not true. "According to Alabama state law, Hand was deemed to be in “constructive possession” of the vehicle, and although he wasn’t driving and the vehicle was parked, the keys being in the car was the determinant that triggered the arrest."" https://www.tidesports.com/dashawn-hand-sleeping-car-not-driving-time-dui-arrest/ https://www.tidesports.com/dashawn-hand-sleeping-car-not-dri...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
DropbearRob 9y ago
from the article. "Hand was parked in a near-campus parking lot, sitting in the driver’s seat with the headlights on and the vehicle cranked, but was asleep with the car in park." "The vehicle cranked" is the key there.. he is shown to be operating the vehicle while under the influence.. If he was asleep in the car without it being on, I doubt they would have a case.
- cr1895 9y ago
  That was just the first one that came up. Critically, it's however the authorities (and it seems to depend on the state) define "operating" the vehicle. But more to my point, you can still be arrested for DUI while not literally driving/sleeping in the backseat. Given the number of law firm search results that pop up, I'm guessing it's often a way people fight DUIs. So maybe these don't stick.
  - DropbearRob 9y ago
    ok ok, perhaps this was a bad example of being in a situation which is legal but illegal adjacent, because it seems in some cases it is illegal to sleep in your car while drunk, or even being near your car while drunk. but the crux of my argument remains valid. in those cases you've broken the law (past tense) because in this case those scenarios are considered a breach of the law. My point remains that the role of government is to pass laws, and the role of law enforcement is to enforce those laws by capturing people who break the law. NOT to arrest people who "might" break the law, because that group contains everyone.

csomar 9y ago

Well driving while drank is pre-crime too.

choward 9y ago
Exactly. It's just trying to prevent you from breaking motor vehicle laws like driving down the wrong side of the road.

solatic 9y ago

> There is a growing misconception that it is the role of the government to "keep their citizens safe". What misconception? This is the basis of the social contract between society and its government, to safeguard the natural rights of society, the foremost of which (Life, among Life, Liberty, Property/Pursuit of happiness) is the safety and security of members of society. Read up on Locke and Rousseau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract > The role of the government is to pass laws This is a tautology. Legislation is but a means in which some forms of government (excepting, for instance, dictatorships) act to secure the natural rights of society. Legislation is not a goal in and of itself for government. > This is the problem with the government... the idea that [the government should try] to prevent you [from] committing a crime See natural right #2 - the right to liberty, which in context means the right to act as you please until you actually cross the line by committing a crime. The right to liberty is not mutually exclusive to the right to life; legitimate governments act to secure both in tandem.

ue_ 9y ago
Why do you think this social contract persists to this day, or if it ever did? Locke and Rousseau were theorisers. Do you really think governments, least of all the UK government, is founded on the ideas of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Even those which claim to be in some way like the US seem to be doing nothing toward these principles. So I think GP's point stands. What relevance does this social contract have when we see it is violated all the time? >act to secure the natural rights of society. This is obviously not the case, as evidenced by the fact that governments act against securing rights we previously held, for example censorship and invasion of privacy. >See natural right #2 - the right to liberty Natural rights are a funny thing - everyone claims they exist yet I see no evidence that they do (or even should), they change depending on who you ask, and various countries have their own ideas of what they mean. What you call "legitimate" is wholly based on your own opinion of it. Proudhon (whom you must be familiar with) particularly took issue with the right of property in the French republican constitution of his day. He noted that it is unlike the rights of equality and justice, too. I'm all for theorising and implementing policy based on our philosophical investigation, but it's not clear to me that the investigation is valid, and that it has been implemented to a sufficient degree. To say our governments are based on the ideas of freedom put forth by Locke is as farcical as saying the Soviet Union was based on the ideas put forward on Socialism by Marx in his criticism of political economy.

mtgx 9y ago

> This is the problem with the government demanding to read all communications... the idea that they have the right in order to prevent you committing a crime. Its not only impossible to prevent someone committing a crime (anyone can snap and do truly horrible things without prior communique), its insane to think that you can arrest someone for pre-crime. This is exactly what Bruce Schneier saw with his "data mining for terrorists" essay more than a decade ago. Trying to prevent terrorist attacks is impossible if you rely on data mining alone, because of all the false positives it can create, making it useless in actually preventing real attacks. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_for.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_f...

gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago

In the UK being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle is a crime. 'In charge of' includes for example being near the vehicle with the keys in your possession and certainly includes being asleep in the vehicle. If charged with this crime you are required to prove (to a balance of probabilities standard i.e. about 50:50) that you were not going to try to drive it until you were sober. NB I don't necessarily agree with the legal situation in the UK I'm merely stating the reality.

salad77 9y ago

> or example, You cannot arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket, or even being asleep in the car while drunk. Yes you can. In the UK (since we're discussing the UK, that's important), the offense is being in charge of a motor vehicle whilst incapacitated by drink or drugs. Incapacitated is defined as being over the limit defined in law (80mg in England/Wales and 50mg in Scotland - don't cross the border after a drink!). Mere possession of the keys or being inside the vehicle [alone] or sitting in the driving seat is treated exactly the same as driving drunk. Some pubs will offer a 'hold your keys' service where you put the keys behind the bar and come back the next day to collect the keys and car when you're below the limit for driving.

Zhenya 9y ago

While I agree with you in general, the following point is incorrect: >>or even being asleep in the car while drunk. If the keys are in the ignition, you are DUI.[0] Even sleeping in the car is also considered a DUI in some states[1]. Beware! [0] http://caselaw.findlaw.com/co-supreme-court/1006683.html http://caselaw.findlaw.com/co-supreme-court/1006683.html [1] http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2015/07/how-to-sleep-it-off-in-your-car-without-getting-a-dui.html http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2015/07/how-to-sleep-it-off...

inlined 9y ago

I think outlawing conspiracy to commit a crime is the (potentially) reasonable way governments have bridged the gap and enforced prevention.

thaumasiotes 9y ago

> You can arrest someone for breaking the law, but never can you arrest someone right up to the point of breaking the law. Attempted murder is criminalized, but that's a weak counterpoint. Criminal conspiracy, however, is exactly the crime you're claiming can't exist.