DWI mopeds bicycles and scates

Jamie /

Oct 24, 2001 11:46PM

Drinking is fine, its your right to be able to drink. I think that if you want, you should be able to get sloshy drunk every night. Just don't drive!!

Everyone feals really sorry when its too late. When your having a limb removed because of an acident or when your watching some grown man cry because you just killed his child that was too close to the street.

Something that most people don't realize is that driving something that doesn't require a license doesn't mean that you can do what the hell you want. Its still against the law (In most states) to drive a scooter or moped or even a bike when you are drunk. YOU can still cause some pretty bad accidents on a moped. Just because its not you that drove up onto the sidewalk, it could still be your fault for swerving into the oncoming traffic or pulling out in front of someone.

Most people can get along just fine at .10% alchohol level but if thats what you blow when you get brought in, thats your ass.

Jamie

Re: DWI mopeds bicycles and scates

Wayne /

Oct 25, 2001 02:57PM

Driving intoxicated is wrong, period.

BUT, I'll argue all day long that the only person you endanger on your moped or scooter is yourself.

Dig through the online news archives. Find me ONE person who was killed as a result of an accident involving a drunk driver on a moped or scooter.

As the regulars know, I was on a kick where I was posting a thread about "Dead on a Moped". I could find no instances where someone was killed from a chain reaction involving a moped and alcohol.

Again, driving drunk is wrong and is illegal for good reasons.

Yes, it's possible that a drunk on a moped COULD make someone in an SUV swerve into a group of Nuns at a bus stop. Has it ever happened? Doubtful.

You drive drunk on the moped, you'll pay the price. People posting and crying about "you could have killed me or my family". Get real. I smashed my moped into a car full speed. I was mangled, the car was fine.

Maybe, if you smashed through the windshield and were wearing a helmet and the car was going 75 mph, your head might detach from your body and kill someone. Still, chances are, you're the only one who will be broken.

Don't mis-interpret this. I'm not saying it's ok. I'm just stating that the drunken rider is the only one going to be killed.

Think of the Kalamazoo Moped race. Are those riders endangering the lives of people in vehicles? Running red lights, getting hit by mini vans, etc? No, they aren't going to hurt anyone but themselves.

Re: DWI mopeds bicycles and scates

Jamie Leonard /

Oct 26, 2001 01:04AM

Actually I'd disagree, you're at the least putting pedestrians at risk (there have been cases of people being badly hurt by having a bicyclist collide with them, let alone a moped going along at max speed) And there have been fatal car accidents where a person has hit a motorcycle/bicyclist and then gone out of control. Mopeds being somewhat more rare on the road in most areas, you're just less likely to find articles quoting that.

One quote... from the BBC website

"A cyclist, who had drank a litre of fortified wine, knocked down and seriously injured a pedestrian in Manchester. Last summer, he was given a nine-month prison sentence. "

Re: DWI mopeds bicycles and scates

Wayne /

Oct 26, 2001 09:33AM

I bet you that the guy in the article you quoted was, actually, a bicyclist.

I still find it hard to believe that a pedestrian wouldn't hear a moped coming, and move.

I've run into a pedestrian on my mountain bike--I was riding way too fast, on the sidewalk. An old guy came out of the adult bookstore, really fast, probably because he didn't want to be seen.

I smashed right into him, and he fell, half in and half out of the doorway of the dirty bookstore.... I rode off before he could get up.

I can totally see how a silent 10 speed could 'sneak' up on a pedestrian. Still-- I doubt that it would happen with a moped.

Re: DWI mopeds bicycles and scates

Jamie Leonard /

Oct 26, 2001 09:51AM

It was a bicyclist (like I said, lots more of em on the road and easier to find examples) However in my own experience, I've had about 3-4 pedestrians step right out in FRONT of me.... and only last moment swerving and braking saved me from crashing into them.

If I'd been drunk I'd probably have run them down... any more reaction time would have been a very bad thing.

Re: DWI mopeds bicycles and scates

Wayne B /

Oct 26, 2001 06:15PM

You're right. A drunk moped rider is, most certainly, a hazzard to pedestrians. I'll even agree that a bicycle rider, could, possibly, be killed by a drunken moped rider.

I also think we'd agree that a drunk moped rider could also endanger the life of another moped rider-- that's a situation I hadn't considered.

MOPED ARMY

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