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They should do away with the 10 year rule. To many people just don't get caught in that time period then they get a second one after the 10 years has lapsed and their second DUI gets another slap on a wrist. Know someone who wrecked a car, blew a .026 and it was just ard, 60 day loss of license, and 1 year probation.

> This law makes significant changes to existing law that will ultimately increase the protection of all drivers by keeping repeat offenders from continuing to operate a vehicle while impaired by drugs or alcohol after being charged with a DUI

The problem is if someone is willing to drive without a license (or on suspended) anyway, it doesn’t actually stop that.

Please note, I’m fine with the actual changes. It’s just that people would be surprised how many DUIs are already people driving without a valid license.

Stop throwing people in jail for weed and start locking these actual threats up.

Well they give people DUI’s for just having weed in their system, even if they are members of the medical program.

Yea first time offenses almost always go to ARD unless the prosecution has an axe to grind and personally dislikes the accussed.

The example you gave is clear ARD bud, and it should be.

You mean .26 right?

Chances are they got the higher >.16 charge dropped in the ARD deal.

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Yeah .26 my bad

Yeah but it was the person's second DUI but it was 11 years after the first one so it got treated like a first offense. Probably should have explained that better.

And this must continue . Just because you have medicine dose not give you excuse to drive impaired.

Lol. Thanks boomer. Weed stays in your system for 30 fucking days.

Fair enough.

I admit we have to work on a system to figure out how impaired someone is at the moment but it dose not give you an excuse to drive hi

Ok 100% we can agree on this.

The problem is that it’s not just impaired drivers that are being arrested, it’s people who simply have a medical card. If an officer spots your medical card, they know you’ll test positive for cannabis in your system wether you recently used or not, so they can be assured of a dui conviction. It can be weeks since your last use and you’ll still be guilty of a dui.

John Fetterman talked quite a bit about this problem, and urged the pa legislature to fix this problem, but nothing has been done so far.

For someone who isn't a regular smoker and has a high metabolism, it can be around 2 weeks, and can go up to like 2 months I think. But your point stands, there's currently no real way to test the immediate actual intoxication of marijuana

That said if you get caught smoking a joint in the behind wheel you should go directly to jail for extreme stupidity alone

The point is it dose not give you an excuse to drive impaired .

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The point is that we have no reliable way of confirming impairment during the operation of a motor vehicle and until we do it's simply open season because the officer thought he smelled weed and now has probable cause and some poor bastard who smoked as long as two months ago is jackhammered in the ass with DUI penalties that they don't remotely deserve.

What has to be worked on is a system/method of testing how impaired someone is at the moment of pull over. Not more laws.

That is something i admit needs to be addressed . Finding a way to test how hi someone is at the moment.

If someone figures out a "breathalyzer" type analysis system for THC "intoxication" they deserve a Nobel prize.

Dose not even have to be breathalyzer just a new blood/urine system

Wont make a difference , justice system in Pa is a joke

Yup. My dad had his license pulled when I was eleven? Didn't technically get it back til I was 23, I think?

Drove plenty of times in between and drunk/high for several trips.

These laws while good intended will not really stop it.

I just want to make sure I understand what the article is saying...

If someone has had a previous dui you can no longer refuse a blood test ?

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This is going to come as a shock to a lot of people, but elderly drivers are a far bigger threat on the roads just by the numbers. Yes, we should get drunk drivers off the roads, but we need to strive for all drivers to be safe.

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You can't refuse anyway cause if you do they automatically charge you with a DUI of the highest tier.

Thats not true

Idk man that's my understanding. Let me rephrase. If they have suspicion and you refuse the sobriety test and blood test and breath alayzer yeah it's automatically charged a DUI.

I have 2 DUI's, 10 years and 6 months apart. For my 2nd one, I got 48 hours in jail, lost my driver's license for 1 year, had to take ARD classes and a shit ton of fines and probation fee's for 12 months. I blew a .10 . If I get a 3rd DUI, I was told, I will spend 1 year in jail and lose my driver's license for 3 years and triple the fines plus 100 hours of community service. My 2nd DUI was in 1999. Not going to get a 3rd one

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For some reason if you were guilty or not, from what i was told it would be best to refuse the chemical test and make them get a warrant, your license will get suspended at first but you'd appeal that with Penndot. Youd have a good chance of it getting thrown out depending on circumstances. Blood tests in pa are considered unconstitutional

Hey I don't care if i get down voted, id rather people know their rights then to be scared into waving them.

Also alcohol isn't the only thing that will get you a dui, if you are a medical majianua patient and haven't used it in days you will still get a positive blood test even if you were driving sober. So until they change that know your rights peeps.

Update: spelling

Danny Birchfield fought the case all the way up to the Supreme Court. With a vote of 7 – 1, it was determined by the highest federal court that laws requiring people to adhere to a chemical test were unconstitutional (at least without a warrant). Breath tests are still deemed constitutional. The chemical test was deemed unconstitutional because of the level of physical intrusion and the availability of other options.

A total of 13 states made it illegal to refuse a chemical test. The punishments for refusal were just as bad as the consequences for a DUI

This is good news for when they legalize weed. It will empower the police and courts to put the hammer on those driving high.

The thing is, as much as elderly drivers shouldn’t be behind the wheel in a lot of cases, there’s no real way of implementing something without it violating some sort of age discrimination.

You’re pretty fucking dumb and deserve every bit of punishment if you get a DUI with the Lyft and Uber literally at your fingertips to get you home

Gotta take a test at 16 to get a license, gotta take one at 65 to keep it. Imo that's how it should be.

It could be periodically mandatory for everyone to have some testing. That’s just one idea.

My wife and I were shopping one day and we saw this extremely old man doing his shopping. We both wondered where the hell this guy's caregiver was, as he was clearly struggling to even walk. The poor guy was bent almost completely over using a cane, shaky as a leaf and could barely look up high enough to see what's ahead of him. When we were loading up our car, we see the same man getting into the driver's seat of a car. There is a absolutely no way that is safe for everyone else on the road.

Now I'm not trying to be "ageist" or anything in saying this. I understand that I may very well get to that point when I'm very old as well. But if I get to the point where I'm a danger to everyone else then take my keys away!

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I think you should have to take a driving test every 5 years. I will die on this hill.

Your hill looks good. Room for one more?

An elderly person goes the wrong way on the turnpike or 95 at least once a day.

More the merrier

Until your Uber driver gets a DUI with you in the car. AMA

Please provide your documentation

Watch out for old people driving up this hill.

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If your second DUI was in 1999, unless you were sentenced super late in 2013, any new DUI will be a first offense

I mean they can't drive if they die in jail. Which in some cases is where this is going.

This happened to my mom, blood test refusal got her a DUI on the grounds that refusal was equal to guilt and self imposed denial of proving oneself innocent. Any idea of the timeframe when this was changed?

Uber and Lyft aren't everywhere.

I was sentenced in 2000

It's rare to get a DUI in PA

Shhhhhhh

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His legs may be a bit weaker than yours but his mind might still be sharp as a tack.

That said, he's prolly the guy doing 45 in the 65 zone.

If I'm reading this right, it's an 18 month suspension for someone with THREE OR MORE prior offenses? That's insane. If you get caught driving drunk that many times, it should be a permanent suspension and significant prison time.

And we wonder why the US is an outlier for road deaths among wealthy nations. Sheesh.

Retest bi-annually at 80.

Intermezzo is an Rx puts folks to sleep, yet folks take before driving. Folks have been cited with DUI for this lawful Rx for years. Why should any form of weed be different?

So your suggestion is let's do nothing until someone crashes into someone else as confirmation? Impaired is impaired whether it's weed, ETOH or ambien.

No. Does not meet the threshhold for incarceration.

What part of it stays in your system for thirty days. You are not high after 4-6 hours. If you can find some weed that keeps you high for thirty days you better patent that shit.

There was a guy in Lancaster County a few years ago ran into another car, killing its driver, while on a suspended license. Had numerous DUI's on his record. DUI is DUI. .10 is still over the limit and you should have known better.

The guy who killed Meredith Demko should have known better, too, and he ended up with a lower level murder charge. Drive sober. No excuses.

They already have that hammer. But without pro-active traffic enforcement, the deaths continue.

.26 should never get dropped. That's highly intoxicated.

Sure but it happens all the time.

If you look at the charging of most ARD cases they keep the initial charge of .08 or greater and drop the rest because they really only need the first one to get a license suspension and everything else in the program going.

Lower courts in PA are jammed with dui cases. Most first offenses go ARD.

This won’t matter lol

I had a neighbor that had his license suspended from DUIs. He hit someone walking down the street and got so scared he was going to go to jail he went home and hung himself . His wife had us help get his body down, meanwhile the dude he hit knew him from the neighborhood and came around looking to fight him it, it was a crazy situation.

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👏 👏

here

At the bottom of it has the sources PA Laws and the recent cases

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Colorado is working on this actually. Pa tch that gets put on your arm for testing (like a breathalizer)

I though the clock reset if you did not get a dui for 10 years? And back in 1999, that clock was 7 years. I know because I got a DUI in 2000 and then got a second in 2007 and on the second I had to deal with a lot of what you dealt with. Except I was sentenced to 3 months in jail and they let me use 28 days of that on rehab. So you may have gotten off lucky. Never did drink and drive again after that though.

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I got a DUI 8 years ago...night before Thanksgiving and all. Did ARD and everything, lost my license for 2 months I believe. In the highway safety portion of it there were 2 older gentlemen who were repeaters. One was on his 4th I believe and the other was on his 7th DUI. The 7th guy was old enough to be my grandfather, it was insane.

After 10 years without another one it becomes your first again. I had a neighbor years ago who was on his 2nd 3rd DUI because the first one had dropped off. So if you were to get another you’d be treated as a first time DUI. I don’t recommend you do that but it legally wouldn’t be your third.

So you got 2 first time DUIs, not a first and second.

DUI for weed only now requires you to have a breathalyzer. How does that make sense?

When I was in my early 20s, fresh out of college, my roommate/high school friend got 4 in just under 3 weeks. They were all grouped into 1 offense. This was mid 90s. He went on to get 3 more in 2 weeks about a year later. He just got his license back a year or two ago. He's now 54.

I don't doubt that he'll get another, if he hasn't already.

I agree. If you drank alcohol 2 weeks ago you're still impared /s

1989 was my 1st DUI and 10 years and 6 months was my 2nd DUI 1999. My 1st DUI in 1989, I was in a accident, fell asleep at the wheel and hit a parked car, bit the steering wheel (wasn't wearing a seat belt) .008, paid out a few thousand dollars for that DUI, plus 6 months probation, DUI classes and 50 hours of community service and an indefinite suspension of my driver's license for driving without insurance. Had to pay for the car I crushed into a telephone pole, before I could get my license back, took me 3 years to pay that bill off and get my driver's license back. Bumming for rides was a royal pain. Sorry for the rant