Bill making it legal to drive drunk at home makes it halfway through Virginia General Assembly, but

[TexasTowelie]

Bill making it legal to drive drunk at home makes it halfway through Virginia General Assembly, but fails late

Virginians who want to crack open a beer or two while doing yard work on a riding lawnmower came close to getting a green light from the General Assembly.

But drinking and getting behind the wheel in your own yard or driveway could still mean big legal trouble after a House of Delegates subcommittee voted down legislation to put private homes beyond the reach of the state's drunk-driving laws.

The Senate passed the bill 37-3 last month, but lawmakers in the House blocked it Friday after deciding it was too difficult to draw a distinction between the guy calmly drinking beer while listening to the radio in a parked car and the guy doing doughnuts on his front lawn.

A House Courts of Justice subcommittee voted 7-0 Friday to kill Senate Bill 308.

Read more: http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/general-assembly/bill-making-it-legal-to-drive-drunk-at-home-makes/article_26f295d3-7da9-52f5-950a-692f25a1c0d3.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I've been under the impression that drunk driving only applied to public roads.

I thought private property, including driveways, were off limits.

[zipplewrath]

3. Not really

It depends upon the state, and of course enforcement is probably rare, but generally laws are written so that they express "operate a motor vehicle". In some states, even a bicycle is covered. Of course part of the problem would be how do they get on to your property to even detect it. Yeah, I get it if you're in an urban area on your 1/4 lot. But how about the guy with 5 acres in the woods? They can't come on your property without some justification.

[marble falls]

2. So its illegal to do drunk donuts on one's own front lawn. What about doing those donuts sober?

[underpants]

5. You've clearly never been to Chesterfield county

Okay. I skipped over Pulaski.

[marble falls]

6. But I enjoy misusing other people's gardening equipment making donuts in their front yards.

[YessirAtsaFact]

4. The current law seems overly intrusive to me

If I want to drive a lawnmower drunk on my yard, it would be stupid but I don’t think the state should interfere, unless I’m so intoxicated they charge me with drunk in public.

If I hurt someone doing this, I should be charged with a crime. I hurt myself, that’s what I get for being stupid.

The law can’t prevent stupid. It shouldn’t try to.