6 ms·

Terrible. I hope this wasn't exarcerbated by a high-speed pursuit.

smackfu 13y ago
Nope. From another article: "The suspect was asked to pull over at a sobriety check point and instead sped away from a police car. He smashed through a police barricade and then plowed down people, some of them lined up outside a nightclub, over a span of two blocks."
- jcromartie 13y ago
  This should still raise the question: do sobriety checkpoints save lives? Even though this was the fault of the driver, and obviously an extremely rare event, would those people still be alive if the driver had just gone home? I'm not anti-checkpoint or anything.
  - pavel_lishin 13y ago
    Are most sobriety checkpoints in an area with a lot of pedestrians nearby?
    - fletchowns 13y ago
      No, not in my area at least. They always put them on the main arteries that lead to the freeways.
  - rosser 13y ago
    These specific people would, yes. But how many more people would risk driving drunk if they knew there were no sobriety checkpoints?
    - jcromartie 13y ago
      It's clear that sobriety checkpoints aren't killing people left and right (that's preposterous). But it's not clear (edit: to me) if they actually save any lives for the effort.
      - tercer_ojo 13y ago
        yes, it's clear that they do save lives. maybe you should say "i'm not certain" instead of "it's not clear". and also maybe grow up some common sense.
        Crito 13y ago
        What makes you say that it is clear? Could you link the study that you have in mind?
        doktrin 13y ago
        > Could you link the study that you have in mind? Why do you feel a study is needed in order to form an opinion on this? What logical arguments would you make against sobriety checkpoints? In any case, turns out that at least one study has been performed. This was just the first google search hit. There's probably more out there. [1] http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/checkpoint.html http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/check... [2] http://www.wrap.org/pdfs/2010TIPElderCDCPaper.pdf http://www.wrap.org/pdfs/2010TIPElderCDCPaper.pdf
        jcromartie 13y ago
        At least in CA, an increased checkpoint effort saw a stall followed by an increase in drunk driving fatalities. But this data obviously doesn't account for a lot of variables. http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/01/06/41411/california-drunk-driving-fatalities-inch-up-after/ http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/01/06/41411/california-drunk-d...
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        jcromartie 13y ago
        Maybe I should have. BTW my "common sense" says that sobriety checkpoints DO reduce drunk driving and fatal accidents. I'm not any kind of DUI checkpoint denier.
  - shiftpgdn 13y ago
    Sobriety checkpoints are illegal in Texas, anyway: http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/checkpoint_laws.html http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/checkpoint_laws.html
    - gamblor956 13y ago
      Sobriety checkpoints have actually been legal in Texas for about 3 years, see http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OPINIONS/HTMLOPINIONINFO.ASP?OPINIONID=20505 http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OPINIONS/HTMLOPINIONINFO.A.... The original distinction, in Texas, was between arresting someone for driving drunk and arresting them for another crime discovered during a sobriety checkpoint. The first was legal, the second was not. However, in Lujan, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals ruled that the latter was acceptable.
      - shiftpgdn 13y ago
        Interesting, I had no idea! Thanks for the correction.
  - corresation 13y ago
    This should still raise the question Should it? Is baseless conjecture informed by essentially no facts, in the echo of a just-happened tragedy, ever useful? I am going to say no, it is never useful. Many misinformed words are spilled, blame is heartily doled out liberally and easily by keyboard warriors, and everyone feels like they've done the world some good, when they've done nothing of the sort. Sorry if this comes across as overly cynical, but with barely a couple of posts in, the blame has been casually blamed on high-speed pursuits (no evidence of one, but throw it in there regardless), sobriety checkpoints (in response to a freak incident in a nation with 11,000 impaired driving deaths yearly)...and restrictions on Uber. I expect a Thanks, Obama to appear soon enough. Don't follow FOX news style "who's to blame!?" thought processes.
    - Jtsummers 13y ago
      I may have downvoted you, if I did, I'm sorry. All I know is that during my fidgeting-by-highlighting I clicked on an arrow.
- smackfu 13y ago
  And yet another article has a different story: "Police said the incident started when an officer on a drunken-driving patrol tried to stop the silver Toyota sedan at a gas station a few blocks away. The car took off, weaving between parked cars then driving at high speed the wrong way down a one-way street. The driver rammed through police barriers — three wooden pieces held up by metal poles — set up on Red River Street on the northeast edge of the entertainment district. It'd had been packed with revelers just minutes earlier, but officials had cleared the area to create a fire lane."

Nope. From another article: "The suspect was asked to pull over at a sobriety check point and instead sped away from a police car. He smashed through a police barricade and then plowed down people, some of them lined up outside a nightclub, over a span of two blocks."

jcromartie 13y ago
This should still raise the question: do sobriety checkpoints save lives? Even though this was the fault of the driver, and obviously an extremely rare event, would those people still be alive if the driver had just gone home? I'm not anti-checkpoint or anything.
- pavel_lishin 13y ago
  Are most sobriety checkpoints in an area with a lot of pedestrians nearby?
  - fletchowns 13y ago
    No, not in my area at least. They always put them on the main arteries that lead to the freeways.
- rosser 13y ago
  These specific people would, yes. But how many more people would risk driving drunk if they knew there were no sobriety checkpoints?
  - jcromartie 13y ago
    It's clear that sobriety checkpoints aren't killing people left and right (that's preposterous). But it's not clear (edit: to me) if they actually save any lives for the effort.
    - tercer_ojo 13y ago
      yes, it's clear that they do save lives. maybe you should say "i'm not certain" instead of "it's not clear". and also maybe grow up some common sense.
      - Crito 13y ago
        What makes you say that it is clear? Could you link the study that you have in mind?
        doktrin 13y ago
        > Could you link the study that you have in mind? Why do you feel a study is needed in order to form an opinion on this? What logical arguments would you make against sobriety checkpoints? In any case, turns out that at least one study has been performed. This was just the first google search hit. There's probably more out there. [1] http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/checkpoint.html http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/check... [2] http://www.wrap.org/pdfs/2010TIPElderCDCPaper.pdf http://www.wrap.org/pdfs/2010TIPElderCDCPaper.pdf
        jcromartie 13y ago
        At least in CA, an increased checkpoint effort saw a stall followed by an increase in drunk driving fatalities. But this data obviously doesn't account for a lot of variables. http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/01/06/41411/california-drunk-driving-fatalities-inch-up-after/ http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/01/06/41411/california-drunk-d...
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - jcromartie 13y ago
        Maybe I should have. BTW my "common sense" says that sobriety checkpoints DO reduce drunk driving and fatal accidents. I'm not any kind of DUI checkpoint denier.
- shiftpgdn 13y ago
  Sobriety checkpoints are illegal in Texas, anyway: http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/checkpoint_laws.html http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/checkpoint_laws.html
  - gamblor956 13y ago
    Sobriety checkpoints have actually been legal in Texas for about 3 years, see http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OPINIONS/HTMLOPINIONINFO.ASP?OPINIONID=20505 http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OPINIONS/HTMLOPINIONINFO.A.... The original distinction, in Texas, was between arresting someone for driving drunk and arresting them for another crime discovered during a sobriety checkpoint. The first was legal, the second was not. However, in Lujan, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals ruled that the latter was acceptable.
    - shiftpgdn 13y ago
      Interesting, I had no idea! Thanks for the correction.
- corresation 13y ago
  This should still raise the question Should it? Is baseless conjecture informed by essentially no facts, in the echo of a just-happened tragedy, ever useful? I am going to say no, it is never useful. Many misinformed words are spilled, blame is heartily doled out liberally and easily by keyboard warriors, and everyone feels like they've done the world some good, when they've done nothing of the sort. Sorry if this comes across as overly cynical, but with barely a couple of posts in, the blame has been casually blamed on high-speed pursuits (no evidence of one, but throw it in there regardless), sobriety checkpoints (in response to a freak incident in a nation with 11,000 impaired driving deaths yearly)...and restrictions on Uber. I expect a Thanks, Obama to appear soon enough. Don't follow FOX news style "who's to blame!?" thought processes.
  - Jtsummers 13y ago
    I may have downvoted you, if I did, I'm sorry. All I know is that during my fidgeting-by-highlighting I clicked on an arrow.
smackfu 13y ago
And yet another article has a different story: "Police said the incident started when an officer on a drunken-driving patrol tried to stop the silver Toyota sedan at a gas station a few blocks away. The car took off, weaving between parked cars then driving at high speed the wrong way down a one-way street. The driver rammed through police barriers — three wooden pieces held up by metal poles — set up on Red River Street on the northeast edge of the entertainment district. It'd had been packed with revelers just minutes earlier, but officials had cleared the area to create a fire lane."