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From: mzal@pegasus.UUCP (Mike Zaleski)
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Highway funding, roadblocks, and the drinking age
Message-ID: <1447@pegasus.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Jun-84 16:36:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: pegasus.1447
Posted: Mon Jun 25 16:36:34 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Jun-84 01:45:44 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems, Lincroft NJ
Lines: 98


Re: Highway funds

  "I read an artical in Popular Mechanics that stated that 7 (I think,
  somewhewe around that number) states are considering losing their
  federal funding and raising the speed limit on the Interstates back
  to 70. One of the states was Colorado, I think that the others were
  all mid-western states."

For many eastern states, where highway construction and repair is
big (political) business, this is not a practical idea.  In general,
it is politically unwise to decline any federal support at the
state level.

Re: Roadblocks

  "Beginning next week, Indiana State Troopers, county sherrifs and state
  Conservation Department police will be manning roadblocks in a five county
  area: Looking for drunk drivers.

  Times and locations of the roadblocks will not be made public (as are radar
  locations), and each roadblock will attempt to stop all vehicles that pass
  the checkpoint.  Officers will then "check for signs of alcohol in the car
  or truck and for behavior that indicates a driver might have been drinking.""

I am not sure this is illegal search and seizure (as previous postings
have pointed out), but my understanding is that in New Jersey a similar
scheme was quietly dropped after it was challanged on a lack of "probable
cause".

The plan was to check every tenth car or so going into NY at the
different NJ/NY bridge crossings.  (For you non-residents, NY has a
lower drinking age than NJ.  Also, access to NY from NJ is pretty
much limited to a few major bridges.)  This was also an interesting
example of political doubletalk.  NJ's governer claimed that we
were going to make sure NJ residents (especially teenagers) weren't
going into NY and coming back drunk.  Unfortunately since all the
roadblocks were set up on the outgoing (to NY) roads, there would
be no checking of people coming back, only people going in.  Hence,
the governer's stated purpose would not be achieved.  But it was a
nice way to get publicity anyway....

Re: Legal drinking age

  "However, what do you have against a National Drinking Age?
  IF IT SAVES LIVES, why not?"

The notion that we should do anything to save lives is one with
which I simply cannot agree.  Especially when the numbers are so
small.  Should we outlaw anything that would save 50 lives a year?

                               "Here in Jersey, the death rate
  for teenaged drivers has dropped by 20% for those involved
  with alcohol."

Clever use of numbers.  The figures I saw in The Star Ledger for
this year and last year were both less than 50 per year.  (Yes,
the number of alcohol related fatalities dropped by about 20%, but
given the recent rise in NJ insurance rates, this seems like white
noise in the grand scheme of things - not the slaughter on the
highways one might be led to believe.)

                  "Since most of the pressure to stop the
  raising of the drinking age is coming from liquor lobbyists,
  why shouldn't pressure to save lives come from the rest of
  us - parents, other drivers, etc.?"

According to the liquor lobbyists, 99 percent of all teenagers
never have any alcohol related accidents.  If this is true, it
seems a bit unfair to penalize all these people for the offenses
of a few.  (Innocent until proven guilty, remember that one?)
Also, some of the people represented by the liquor lobby are
probably owners of small bars.  Consider what your investment
in a bar in a college town might be worth after such a law was
passed.

   "Perhaps New York will finally see the light and pass the
  21 drinking age bill."

This bill was defeated.

                          "They seem to have had enough enlightenment
  to require seat belt use."

As of today, this remains to be seen.

                               "Until New York passes the 21 law,
  I would advise anyone to not drive in the Lake Greenwood or
  Staten Island areas after 1:00am on a weekend when all of
  the New Jersey teenyboopers are weaving back from a night
  of drinking."

Speaking of parents, who gave the kids the car keys?  In any
case, my experience is that the traffic into NJ on 440 from
Staten Island around 1 AM seems no worse than traffic anywhere
else at that time.

-- Mike^Z       Zaleski@Rutgers      allegra!pegasus!mzal