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Austin Police releases list of bars with most DWIs

Every time a person is arrested for drinking and driving, they’re asked where they were drinking. In the last year, two bars moved to the top of the list, and both of them are on 4th Street.

In 2006, two bars, Rain and Cedar Street, tied for the most DWI arrests, according to data from the Austin Police Department. Both are located in the Warehouse District, and they’re right across the street from each other.

Other bars on the list include the Blind Pig, the Yellow Rose, Club Carnaval, the Library, Oil Can Harry’s, Club Rodeo, Spill, and Sherlock’s.

The DWI Task Force has been extremely busy since doubling its manpower in March 2006.

“We’re doing what the TABC and APD asks of us,” said the owner of Rain in a statement to KVUE. “We put our employees through TABC certification. We offer vouchers for free rides. We give away plenty of water. We are doing everything we are capable of but apparently we are going to ramp that up a little bit.”

What is deceiving about this list is that, more often than not, a person when asked where they have been drinking, only lists the last place they drink. They don’t list all the other places they went before going to the last bar. In most cases, the police officer merely asks the person “where have you been drinking?” Then, the person names the last bar from which they just left, leaving out the name of all the other bars they visited. Consequently, as with all statistics, the devil is in the details.

Further, there statistics don’t address how many of the people arrested for drunk driving were actually convicted of DWI.

Be warned, the APD DWI Task Force will be out in full force on Super Bowl weekend.

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One cities high tech approach to fighting DWI….can Austin be too far behind?

Police in Fresno, California are throwing up roadblocks, conducting stakeouts and using night-vision goggles, satellite tracking devices and video cameras in an extraordinary crackdown aimed not at terrorists or drug lords, but at drunken drivers.

The muscular tactics have made Fresno one of the toughest cities in America for those who dare to get behind the wheel after drinking. Read the rest of this entry »

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University of Texas Police are making more DWI arrests

In my opinion, the University of Texas Police are losing sight of their main purpose of protecting UT property and UT students. When I attended UT, you never heard of UT police making DWI arrests. Now, UT police are making a large number of arrests…and more and more each year.

To most folk’s surpirise, more and more of these arrests are not being made on campus. Most folks don’t realize that UT police have jurisdiction to make arrests in any county that the University owns property. What that means is that a UT police officer basically has statewide jurisdiction. Read the rest of this entry »

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MADD wants us to return to Prohibition

MADD is using bogus statistics to push its agenda of prohibition. It first tried to make people register beer kegs like guns. Now it wants all first-time DWI offenders to be required to have ignition interlock devices.

The group’s intermediate goal is to have all new cars equipped with devices from the factory. Ultimately, MADD would have us repeat the failed social experiment called Prohibition.

Don’t believe the hype. MADD falsely claims that there are 13,000 yearly “drunk driving” deaths. MADD uses statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which recorded over 13,000 “alcohol-related traffic fatalities,” not drunken-driving deaths.

An “alcohol-related traffic fatality” includes drunken drivers, drunken pedestrians run over by sober drivers, and traffic fatalities with any measurable amount of alcohol in the deceased’s system. A measurable amount is 0.002 percent, which is one sip of light beer for a 175-pound man. Read the rest of this entry »

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