What a stupid thing to do ...
You would have to be drunk to do that ... Oh, wait ...
US woman Whitney Beall has been arrested by Florida police after live-streaming herself drunk driving. The City of Lakeland Police department says that on Saturday it “... began receiving 911 calls from viewers of Periscope about a possible drunk driver using the social media APP Periscope to broadcast herself.” Officers …
I don't know much about Periscope - it's nothing I would be interested in. So I'm not sure how it works.
Is that title something she actually put into Periscope before the video started? Did she actually put up a live-streaming video onto the public internet which she labelled "Driving home drunk"?
Is it really possible that someone could be that incomprehensibly stupid, even when drunk?
Apart from it isn't....
It's one of the good examples from freakonomics (or superfreakonomics, not sure which book) where they have some data for one side (drunk driving) and NO data for the other side, which they then constructed by saying that, if you assume people walk drunk in exactly the same proportion as drive drunk. Which you then can conclude, on a per mile basis, that driving drunk is 8 times more personally safe and 5 times less likely to cause a fatality. Drunk driven miles make up less than 1% of car travel (by freakonmics numbers) but are involved with between 30% and 60% of fatal accidents.
Of course those stats are for the USA, where apparently no-one walks much and everyone drives a lot, so for other countries the figure varies quite a lot. It also includes ALL fatalities where a person was drunk, and not in a vehicle.
Perhaps most importantly, it's a per mile traveled figure, which can give you all sorts of wonderful statistics about vehicle safety. Motorbikes, planes, trains, HGVs and buses are 10-100 times "safer" than cars on a per mile travelled figure, but it's not nearly as entertaining. Or even that unexpected, since a number of these vehicles require a higher grade of licence, and are often driven professionally.
@ tnovelli
Nah, we need to ban PEOPLE! Down with people! They are the cause of all our problems.
I will be first to volunteer - in about, ummmm, 10 years or so, which will be about when I'm due to shuffle anyway.
Icon shows the direction I am most probably headed!!!! ----->
<quote>Don't worry - the National Rifle Car Association will stand by you. They'll be sure to insist that problems like this aren't solved by taking cars off the road: More cars are needed! More, damn it! MORE!</quote>
But of course. Think of what would happen if every pedestrian who was killed by a car, instead of being a defenceless sack of meat, was actually carrying a car themselves? Drunk drivers would think twice about running over car-toting pedestrians then.
If you look at the US and it's development in a historic context, you'll see that the NorthEast portion is like Britain or Europe. Towns are closer together due to the transportation methods at the time, you walked or rode a horse. As the US expanded across the continent, transportation methods improved (Industrial Revolution etc), thus towns and cities grew further apart. So, without a massive 'Hero Project' building mass transportation (or teleportation lol) across the US, cars will be here for some time to come.
From the State of Texas, where drinking and driving is considered a
sport, comes a true story about drinking wisely.
Recently a routine police patrol was parked outside a local neighborhood bar.
Late in the evening the officer noticed a man leaving the bar so intoxicated
that he could barely walk. The man stumbled around the parking lot
for a few minutes with the officer quietly observing. After what seemed an
eternity and trying his keys on five different vehicles, the man
managed to find his own car, which he fell into. He was there for a
few minutes as a number of other patrons left the bar and drove off.
Finally he started the car, switched the wipers on and off (it was a dry
night), flicked the hazard flasher on and off, tooted the horn and
then switched on the lights. He moved the vehicle forward a few inches,
reversed a little and then remained stationary for a few more minutes as more
patrons left in their vehicles. At last he pulled
out of the parking lot and started to drive slowly down the street.
The police officer, having patiently waited all this time, now
started up his patrol car, put on the flashing lights, promptly pulled
the man over and carried out a Breathalyzer test. To his amazement
the Breathalyzer
indicated no evidence of the man having consumed alcohol at all!
Dumbfounded, the officer said "I'll have to ask you to accompany me
to the Police station. This Breathalyzer equipment must be broken."
"I doubt it," said the man, "Tonight I'm the designated decoy."
LOL, but; in the UK at least I think you could be prosecuted for drunk driving on the basis of that statement. IANALBIPOOTI and I think that Accessories and Abettors Act (1861) still has a relevant provision in force (much of the Act has been superseded by the Criminal Law Act 1967) that states:
"Whosoever shall aid, abet, counsel, or procure the commission of any indictable offence, whether the same be an offence at common law or by virtue of any Act passed or to be passed, shall be liable to be tried, indicted, and punished as a principal offender."
“... does not provide officers with access to Periscope as an authorized software tool and therefore they did not have the ability to monitor the driver’s actions.”
So, load up police computers with Periscope, Facebook, Instagram, Google +, etc, etc ..... then watch their efficiency soar.
"An officer was able to use their personal account in an effort to locate the driver. The officer was able to find the driver based observations and landmarks from the streaming video. At this time, she was driving a 2015 Toyota Corolla with a flat left front tire."
http://www.wptv.com/news/state/whitney-marie-beall-arrested-for-dui-after-broadcasting-a-drunk-girl-driving-periscope-video
I applaud this new trend of thoughtful criminals in Florida. First it's the guy that left his court documents (1st stolen car) in the 2nd stolen car. Now it's drunks recording videos of their attempt to drive home. Both should be a slam dunk conviction and will lighten the load of overworked police officers.
"the cynic in me is thinking "Did people *really* call 911 on seeing someone driving drunk?"
In US, people are NOT cool with drunk driving. The drivers here are too poor when sober, there's too much traffic on the roads, to have some drunk bastard careening down the road. Even worse, screwing around with her cell phone while driving! Yes, I'm sure she was called in.
To be honest, I've had enough problems with people screwing around on their phones when the car is rolling down the road (I can't refer to this as "driving" because they are not driving, they are letting the car to go where it will while they stare at the phone...). Since she was holding the phone with one hand (instead of using some kind of mount), and frequently looking at it... if I'd seen this live video I'd have called her into the police even if she was stone-sober, for screwing with the phone while driving.
Chivo243, hehe... I found the designated decoy hilarious 8-)