6 Days Suspension For Being Designated Driver?

[Krion_Vark]

*SNIP*

Public or Private?
I cannot say what I am thinking without know that about your school.

 

[thePyro_13]

How did the school even find out? And why would you tell them if their just going to punish you for it. The indecent you describe is between your friend and the police(and depending on his age, his parents), and no one else.

Wouldn't any school, private or not, receive word if one of their students was caught violating an underage drinking related law?

I wouldn't think so, though I live in Australia, so maybe things work differently where you come from.

 

[mjc0961]

Now I get to the crux of this post. One of the guys was determined to the designated driver. As luck would have it we as also pulled over. He was completely sober but the other guys had open cans of beer in the car, which is illegal in the state of Georgia. Today we get to school and learn that he has been suspended six days. A similar situation happened last year where a student was caught driving people with open containers and no action was taken.

So, after that rather long setup, my question is this: Do you think my school was in the wrong to punish this guy? I know that he may have been hanging out with the wrong crowd but he did not do anything that violated the school rules. I personally think suspension is ridiculous, 6 days being absolutely insane.

Yeah, I think the school was in the wrong if another guy did the same thing and wasn't punished. They need to take a step back, pull their heads from their asses, and decide if that situation is punishable or not and then apply it to every student. That "no punishment for you, but 6 day suspension for you" crap is, well, crap.

 

[Klepa]

Why the hell does your school get to decide what you do when not on their property? Is this a private school?

My question exactly. The scene described in the original post sounds more like an Orwellian dystopia than a school. No open containers sounds ridiculous aswell, are the police worried that the passengers will spill beer on the seats? If the driver's sober, I don't see a problem.

 

[Aris Khandr]

No open containers sounds ridiculous aswell, are the police worried that the passengers will spill beer on the seats? If the driver's sober, I don't see a problem.

The open containers law exists because drinking while driving is specially hazardous. One *might* argue that they are safe because they drank hours ago, and it hasn't quite metabolized to be under the legal limit yet. But an open container in the car could mean that the driver is actively intoxicating themselves while driving.

 

[Thaa'ir]

i thought that the legal age to drink was 21 in the US? its just you mentioned that under 21 you have a .02 legal blood alchol level. Where im from if your on your Ps with driving you cant have any blood alchol level. so 0.00.

I am not sure about this, but I've heard the .02 limit exists for minors so religious reasons, since small amounts of wine are offered to minors for Communion during Catholic masses (and perhaps some Protestant services, though most I know use grape juice).

 

[Something Amyss]

Do I think it's wrong? Yeah, but the whole policy seems stupid to me.

Do I think that the school is justified, within the context of their rules, to suspend him? Absolutely. The idea of the rule is simply to discourage drinking, this guy was obviously involved in the drinking culture, and even if he hadn't been drinking himself that night, he was still breaking the law by transporting passengers who had open beer cans. There may not be a written rule saying that's what should happen, but it seems like a reasonable expression of the policy.

Agreed. It's a dumb policy, but the enforcement here seems in line with it.

I have trouble seeing this as kosher, though.

 

[teebeeohh]

am i the only one who thinks it's weird to let people drive before you let people drink?
cars area way more dangerous

ot: punishing him was ok but maybe they should have given him a reduced punishment and imho this should also not count towards his two strikes

 

[Merkavar]

i thought that the legal age to drink was 21 in the US? its just you mentioned that under 21 you have a .02 legal blood alchol level. Where im from if your on your Ps with driving you cant have any blood alchol level. so 0.00.

I am not sure about this, but I've heard the .02 limit exists for minors so religious reasons, since small amounts of wine are offered to minors for Communion during Catholic masses (and perhaps some Protestant services, though most I know use grape juice).

dont drive after communion. Dont you do communion when your like 10 or something so you wouldnt be driving, but what is your blood alchol level actually going to be is you take a sip of win? like 0.0000000001.

i think its just my views that you shouldnt drive with any blood alchol level.

 

[Lancer873]

Well, I know my state has a law where it's illegal to have any alcoholic beverage open inside of a vehicle while it's being driven, so... hard to say. If six day's suspension was all he got and his record and insurance weren't destroyed for live, I'd say it's regrettable, but only fair. If he was banned from all school activities for months and had his license taken away... that's not so fair.

 

[Thaa'ir]

i thought that the legal age to drink was 21 in the US? its just you mentioned that under 21 you have a .02 legal blood alchol level. Where im from if your on your Ps with driving you cant have any blood alchol level. so 0.00.

I am not sure about this, but I've heard the .02 limit exists for minors so religious reasons, since small amounts of wine are offered to minors for Communion during Catholic masses (and perhaps some Protestant services, though most I know use grape juice).

dont drive after communion. Dont you do communion when your like 10 or something so you wouldnt be driving, but what is your blood alchol level actually going to be is you take a sip of win?

Communion, at least in Catholicism, is offered at every church service, so 16 and 17 year olds who take it could be driving. The amount of alcohol is certainly not enough to worry about driving, so I don't see a need to avoid it.

As to the last, I don't know...not enough to matter.

 

[infohippie]

If it's not on school grounds, the school has no right to get involved, "policy" or not. That's ridiculous. Policing kids' behaviour outside of school is the responsibility of the parents, not the school. If the parents don't bother, then it's their own fault if their kids grow up to be scum.

 

[chuckman1]

American laws are really stupid and discourage being a designated driver if you and who you are driving aren't 21. Zero tolerance policies are stupid and cause more death in the process.

 

[Aris Khandr]

dont drive after communion. Dont you do communion when your like 10 or something so you wouldnt be driving, but what is your blood alchol level actually going to be is you take a sip of win? like 0.0000000001.

Receiving Communion won't result in much intake. However, if you are part of the group offering it to the congregation, part of your job is to finish off any of the wine/blood in the cup. Depending on how things go, that could be significantly more.

i think its just my views that you shouldnt drive with any blood alchol level.

My personal opinion is that anyone driving under the influence should be convicted of attempted manslaughter. But I say that as someone who still has trouble keeping her temper in check nearly 15 years after her best friend was killed by a drunk driver.

 

[crudus]

I agree with the police about the open container laws, but not with teh school for suspending him since he was the only responsible one of the group. If the school says "if he was so responsible he wouldn't have gotten himself into that situation", then I say "If he didn't get himself into that situation four or more people could easily be dead right now".

I don't know why it is .02, it may be because some unknown factors can make you blow a .01. But having one beer will probably push you over the limit. For people over 21 the legal limit is .08.

I am sure nyquil or something would make it .01. I am sure someone could argue something like "wrong calibration" or "standard deviation" when it reads a percent of a percent(a ten thousandth) of your blood is alcohol.

Hell at my high school you could get caught ODing off of heroin on campus and the worst they would do is send you home for the day...<.<

Not a stop by the hospital first?

Do you think my school was in the wrong to punish this guy?

No.

This guy was keeping company of people doing something illegal and I'm sure that if the police pulled him over and noticed the open cans he'd be in trouble there too. It's his car so he's responsible for any actions taken inside it, if something happens which shouldn't then he should either rectify the situation or if he can't then he shouldn't be driving those people around. That the way it is, because if not, you could say stuff to a court like "it was my passenger who did the drive-by shooting, I didn't know anything about it, I was just driving".

So the taxi driver a guy takes to and from his house after robbing a bank should be arrested? or a bus driver? Sounds sketchy and wrong to me.

 

[BonsaiK]

Do you think my school was in the wrong to punish this guy?

No.

This guy was keeping company of people doing something illegal and I'm sure that if the police pulled him over and noticed the open cans he'd be in trouble there too. It's his car so he's responsible for any actions taken inside it, if something happens which shouldn't then he should either rectify the situation or if he can't then he shouldn't be driving those people around. That the way it is, because if not, you could say stuff to a court like "it was my passenger who did the drive-by shooting, I didn't know anything about it, I was just driving".

So the taxi driver a guy takes to and from his house after robbing a bank should be arrested? or a bus driver? Sounds sketchy and wrong to me.

The difference is that the taxi driver or the bus driver may not have known he had a robber in his vehicle, whereas in the OP's case there was no ambiguity and the driver knew very well that his passengers were doing something both illegal and against the rules of the school. There's no sketchiness there whatsoever.

 

[sb666]

My school dose not give a shit about what you do after school they only care if you come to school drunk the next day.

As for your situation i say your school should not have a say towards anything that happens after school hours.

 

[FalloutJack]

A designated driver cannot be convicted of any alcohol-related laws. He did not drink, he did not partake, and he is responsibly taking care of those who did so that nobody ELSE is doing something illegal AND ESPECIALLY NOT GETTING INTO AN ACCIDENT, which is the solid point of these laws. To punish the person looking out for others is shameful and ridiculous and I hope he sues the fuck out of anyone who raised a finger at him. Yes, even the school.

 

[moose49408]

This may sound strange, but I'm going into education as a profession (physics teacher) and I wholly disagree with the school's decision to punish the designated driver, especially that much. Yes, he was around students who were doing the wrong thing, but the fact is that this one kid was being at least somewhat responsible and making sure that his idiotic friends got home safely. If we teach teenagers that they're going to be punished, even if they are being somewhat responsible, they're going to have even less reason to try to be responsible in the future. Is there any chance that this school's rule are going to stop teenagers like this from doing things that they aren't supposed to? Absolutely none. In fact it will encourage them by making them feel like rebels, which is what they want. Is there a chance that cracking down on kids who are being responsible is going to discourage them from being responsible in the future? Oh absolutely.

 

[Aris Khandr]

A designated driver cannot be convicted of any alcohol-related laws. He did not drink, he did not partake, and he is responsibly taking care of those who did so that nobody ELSE is doing something illegal AND ESPECIALLY NOT GETTING INTO AN ACCIDENT, which is the solid point of these laws. To punish the person looking out for others is shameful and ridiculous and I hope he sues the fuck out of anyone who raised a finger at him. Yes, even the school.

According to the OP, he had a BAC of .15, and there were open containers in the car. While it isn't DUI, it most certainly could be possible that he was actively drinking while driving. Open containers are illegal, designated driver or not.