More on DUIs

Dear Editor,

While I agree with Mr. Hendricks that police officers have had much of their discretion legislated away, I see at least two problems with his proposal to test suspected drunk drivers using a driving simulator.

Doing so would require transporting the driver from the scene to the police station. This would expend more time and resources, and create a further problem of what to do about his vehicle or passengers therein (who might logically be even more inebriated than the driver). Additionally, whenever a police officer moves someone from the point of contact to another location, the legal nature of the contact begins to swing dramatically from a simple detention to an arrest.

I further disagree that the commonly used field sobriety tests have no bearing upon a person's ability to operate a motor vehicle. The entire basis of the psychophysical tests is that each test is a divided-attention task, re-quiring the person tested to perform two tasks simultaneously. One of these tasks will be physical, and the other mental.

Driving a vehicle is most certainly a divided-attention task, consisting of physically managing the steering, acceleration and braking, while mentally managing visual and tactile feedback from the road ahead and the vehicle itself.

As for the issue of the statutory BAC limit, it was created by legislation, and may be abolished in the same manner. If enough people make enough noise for their elected representatives to hear, that noise will be acted upon.

It would appear that MADD is a noisy bunch, indeed. Perhaps the opposition could call itself DAMM -- Drunks Against Mad Mothers.

Owen J. McPhillips

McCook