<p>This is going to effect a whole state - starting tomorrow - and especially college students - It will be interesting to see the stats on this law in a few months.</p>
<p>Anyone with a cold better not take any prescribed cold meds and drive either!!!</p>
<p>I say it's about time. The number of people getting killed on the highway by drunk drivers (in NC, in particular) seems outrageous to me. I hope this helps.</p>
<p>Gonna be interesting, particularly in the first several weeks of the new school year. NC already targets the major colleges and universities with A.L.E. undercover officers during the beginning of the new term, and they will now have a lot more freedom and authority to pull people.</p>
<p>Sent this one on to my d. (Not that she drinks and she doesn't have a car, but she is sick as dog and guzzling cold medicine...so she'd better stay off her Vespa.) :)</p>
<p>Seriously, I'm all for any laws with teeth that will keep our kids and others safe. Apparently, here in Texas, we have the highest number of alcohol-related traffic deaths in the nation. Perhaps our legislators need to borrow NC's notes on this new law.</p>
<p>I would expect that to be challenged in court - I'm not sure that having "any" amount of a legally prescribed drug (codeine) in your system is equivalent to intoxication. I think they have to at least set a level for assumed intoxication when they are talking about a legal substance, regardless of a person's age.</p>
<p>I wonder if that is a true quote of the new law, or a paraphrase, where the language related to codeine is taken out of context?</p>
<p>We'd be in big trouble in hospitals - every so often a situation comes up where a person has had some sort of outpatient procedure, and has gotten a morphine or codeine analog, and didn't being someone else along to drive them home. Hospitals have P&Ps to handle this, because some people are truly impaired - like post-op for minor surgery, for example - but others might have say Darvocet in their urine or blood, but not be impaired. Wow!</p>
<p>Driving while intoxicated really is a huge problem among college kids here. A friend of mine who represents a lot of college kids who've been charged with DWI said he's seeing a big increase in the number of repeat offenders, including kids who get their second DWI ticket before their first has even gone to court or been resolved. He's also seen a big increase in the number of female offenders for this particular offense. </p>
<p>The laws going into effect tomorrow also include restrictions on kids younger than 18 talking on cell phones. That probably doesn't affect too many college students directly, but it may reduce the odds of their being hit by a distracted high school student.</p>
<p>I've seen news stories lately about a number of illegel immigrants causing DWI deaths in NC. I find that interesting because the streets of NYC are overrun with NC plates on cars driven by illegals. What are the licensing/registration laws like in NC?</p>
<p>I don't know if this link will work, but it contains the final, marked up bill. There's probably a better cite, but this is better than a hasty, incomplete summary. I'll see if I can find a better one.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ncdot.org/dmv/driver_services/drivingpublic/applying.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ncdot.org/dmv/driver_services/drivingpublic/applying.html</a> link to NC license requirements.</p>
<p>I've stood in line at the DMV behind some Spanish speaking people whose papers were certainly being scrutinized very carefully. I have no idea if they were here illegally, but at least at our local DMV branch, the employees look carefully.</p>
<p>I think more likely the problem is people driving WITHOUT a license or registration, not that we're issuing licenses to undocumented immigrants. The lack of a valid license is a problem we see with people who can't get a license (like if they're here illegally or can't produce the necessary paperwork) or who've had their licenses revoked for DWIs. Many of the instances of people driving without a license are lifelong citizens and residents who've lost their licenses. </p>
<p>Since one is required to show proof of insurance to get a license here, I think I'd prefer that they allow more drivers to be eligible to get a license so that there wouldn't be so many uninsured drivers on our roads.</p>
<p>So is the issue one of registration rather than licensing? I've been a literacy volunteer for over 20 years and I, personally, work with people that I know to be illegal immigrants who drive vehicles with NC plates. They are everywhere here, and the visual profile (flame away) of the people I don't personally know who drive cars with NC plates appears that same as the illegals I do know personally driving cars with those plates. It's not a question of a few NC plates or NC plates AND other states, but a massive number of NC plates in NYC driven by a specific group of individuals and pretty much no one else.</p>
<p>An article about the teens and cell phones - in NC - <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/516173.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/516173.html</a></p>
<p>I just wish they would ban talking on hand held devices all together - we had 3 fatal accidents last year - all within a month - kids talking on cell phones and driving into something - all fatals. One was even a Cingular customer - a college student - on the her cell - drove thru the Cingular store front at nite - It was sooo sad to see these reports. Where I live there is a bridge that comes down to a rotary - I can't tell you how many times I am on that rotary - and I have the right of way mind you - and a car is coming off the bridge way tooo fast - with the driver on a dam cell phone - man o man - talk about road rage!!! My horn just about gets worn out.</p>
<p>I guess you're talking about cars registered in NC. I was thinking more about licensing the drivers of those cars. The cars may be registered (to someone else, I guess?), but the drivers may not have licenses. Still a problem, of course.</p>
<p>As I said, I'm in NYC and we had a fatal accident here just a couple of weeks ago involving a cell phone. Woman with a passenger swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a car carrying a mother and toddler headon. The driver with the cell phone was killed, the others were injured -- the toddler critically.</p>
<p>Hhhmmm, NCeph, it does say "any". I question that because I know that for NIDA drug screens there are certain cut-offs if a test is to be called positive. It is the "poppy seed muffin" phenomenon. Poppy seed muffins can give you a positive drug screen (at least theoretically, if you eat enough of them), so the cut-offs are set high enough to exclude poppy seeds as a reason for a positive test. It also has to do with cross reacting substances, and low levels of legitimate substances in OTC meds. A higher cut-off for positive eliminates the false positives.
Medical drug screens don't always use these cut-offs, because when you are only looking to see if a person has ingested a substance, not to take him to court or fire him, etc, then you want to know if a substance is present, within the limits of a testing methodology.</p>
<p>Actually, as I think though, it wouldn't matter because a person taking therapeutic doses of a codeine cough syrup will turn up positive by the NIDA cut-offs. I know it says "don't drive or use dangerous equipment", on the cough syrup bottle, but we all know that you can take a low dose and not truly be impaired. This will be interesting, any attorneys out there?</p>
<p>Well, I'm an attorney, but I don't practice this sort of law, so I really can't say how the statute will be implemented. I do think that when there is a lot of public outcry for closing loopholes, taking away judicial discretion and getting tougher on certain crimes that the legislature can get overzealous and write some unintended consequences into the law. Whether that's what happened here, I don't know. </p>
<p>Also, I just wanted to comment on another previous post that suggested that one could tell by looking at a person whether that person was in the country legally. I don't think it is possible to tell that from looking at someone -- even if he appears to look like someone you know who is here illegally.</p>
<p>It looks as tho NC has written the perfect - ahem - NO tolerance law - but I sure wonder what is going to happen when they drag someone to the ER and "force'' a lab test on them in order to arrest/prosecute them. It is going to get mighty expensive for the state I would think. The diabetic - who is having a reaction could well fit the description of a drunk - or under the influence. Hope they really don't get way over the top on this. Darn it!!! NO more poppy seed muffins I guess :(</p>
<p>CANGEL - there are alot of OTC's that have enough alcohol - and other things - to get pretty high on - to get one arrested for being under the influence - a DUI - kids are doing that all the time. At many pharmacies - those items are now kept behind the counter - thus the warning labels on priscriptions.</p>
<p>Guess this is the legal limit answer........................The laws stipulate that an alcohol level reading of 0.08 is enough for a conviction.</p>
<p>Under the current DWI laws, defense lawyers have been able to convince judges to acquit clients who had alcohol levels of 0.08 or more. The lawyers attacked the reliability of the Intoxilyzer, which measures alcohol levels, and argued that field sobriety tests did not demonstrate that their clients were impaired.............................</p>
<p>and that number goes down per conviction - to 0.04 and then to 0.0 - so it certainly looks to be a real NO -tolerance type of law</p>
<p>WOW - so OK - after reading this article about this law changes - it sure scares the crap out of me as a parent/adult - and really upsets me about the privacy and all the rights that one will loose - even if not driving - I am sure this law will be challanged big time - there is absolutely NO wiggle room under these new laws.</p>
<p>This could potentially drive kids underground or not to respond when it comes to someone going to the hospital for care for alcohol poisoning.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Another change makes consumption of alcohol by persons under the age of 21 a misdemeanor offense. Previously, only possession and purchase had been against the law.
[/quote]
I'm not a lawyer and have never understood how someone can consume alcohol yet not be in possession of it. If it's in their hand or in their stomachs, isn't it in their possession?</p>
<p>UCSD - good point lol</p>
<p>If you have open containers of alcohol in a car, for instance, even if your hand is not on it, it is possesion. Also if it is in your backpack or you are toting some around. For some reason, a closed bottle is not so defined,here.</p>