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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!rcj
From: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: Alcohol-related accidents (what does that mean?)
Message-ID: <951@burl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-Jan-86 23:00:04 EST
Article-I.D.: burl.951
Posted: Sat Jan 11 23:00:04 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jan-86 06:13:42 EST
References: <127@rruxp.UUCP> <582@sigma.UUCP>
Reply-To: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 33
Keywords: deception
Summary: 

In article <582@sigma.UUCP> bill@sigma.UUCP (William Swan) writes:
>Yeah. It's like anything else that it's faddish to rail against: it means 
>that alcohol was "involved" in the accident. It doesn't have to be a
>contributing factor, it merely needs to be there to be counted.

Yes, indeed.  In fact, if a drunk is walking down the sidewalk and a car
runs up onto the sidewalk and kills him, it is officially listed as an
"alcohol-related death".  Along the same lines, I guess these days when
we have lost our policemen (serve and protect) and replaced them with
law enforcement officers (uphold the law), if a car rams into your living
room where you are sitting getting pleasantly soused, the cops will probably
arrest you for public drunkenness when they show up.

Disclaimer:  I don't believe in drunken driving, either; and I support most
of the efforts of the incredibly underpaid police departments of our great
country.  The above sarcasm results from the sour taste still in my mouth
over the NJ state patrolman who towed my rental car for a supposedly-expired
registration (turns out later it wasn't), left four of us on the Garden State
Parkway at night with the window down (electric window, he took the keys) for
about 20 minutes, then forced two of us to ride in the car *while it was being
towed* by threatening me with physical arrest if I didn't comply with "a direct
order from a police officer".  I'll leave out the rest of the horror story,
leave it to say that our car was towed at 8pm and we didn't get back to the
hotel until 4am after spending, among other things, two hours on a sidewalk
in the middle of nowhere and $85 cab fare.  I was not impressed -- I'll cool
off sooner or later.

Thanks for listening,
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj
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