lamont
Contributor
PhillyDiver86:Ok, let's go back to the speed limit example. If someone gets pulled over for going 10 mph over the speed limit, they get a comparably smaller penalty than someone caught going 25 over. Yes, I drank. But the fact that I blew a 0.00, clearly showing I was perfectly sober by the time I was in the car (the highest my BAL could've been at the time I stepped into the car, going by the rule that it drops by .015 for every hour after drinking, is .015 since I was tested an hour after -- still under the legal limit of .02 for underage DUI). So my only point is that what I did seems by all accounts to be far less severe than someone underage who is caught piss drunk and possibly causing trouble and/or being uncooperative. THAT'S why I would argue that my behavior warrants different treatment.
Thing is that the law is apparently that for any MIP infraction that you lose your license for 90 days. That sounds clear, and if you don't want to lose your license you shouldn't be drinking or shouldn't get caught. I routinely do 8-10 mph over the limit and I'm okay with the cost of that if I get pulled over, and I try to keep a pretty low profile on the road so that I don't attract attention...
Advice well taken, but in this case we actually didn't have any bottles in the car because the cop got us after we dropped them off in the dumpster. Same thing would've happened had we walked to the dumpster, just without the possibility of me landing a DUI. And there won't be a next time for me back home, that's for sure... I'm keeping it confined to college from now on, lol.
Guarantee you that kids pulling up to a dumpster on a saturday night, hopping out and dumping trash into it will trigger a different reaction when a cop sees it than a kid walking to a dumpster with a garbage bag and throwing it in... If you're dumping out empty bottles, no judge is going to consider that MIP just by that fact and if you smell like alcohol you've got a pretty good excuse. If a car is involved, just the fact that you've got open containers is enough to get you in trouble, and it immediately introduces the suspicion of not only MIP, but DUI, and that is going to earn you more attention from any cop who sees you...