Random Road Blocks?

Whoa. Random road blocks might be legal in thee near future. What does that say for Texas if we allow that to happen? Here's the article Road Blocks. I found it on Scott Henson's blog called Grits for breakfast, and let me just say, he's pretty fantastic in my book. On to the meat and potatoes.

So in his article, Scott talks about how DPS here in Texas is trying to bring about the topic of random road blocks and their legality. This bill has been submitted and rejected 3 other times already! They just changed the name, and resubmitted it. Basically, DPS wants to circumvent the legal system and authorize the road blocks and randomly check drivers' licenses, insurance and registration. Oh! And they want the Police Departments help! Sure! Right now all they want to check is the above mentioned documents. Next week, it'll be "Ma'am, You're documents seem to be in order, but im gonna need you to step outside of the vehicle." "What's the problem officer?" "You look a little bit deshevled, it seems to me that you might have been drinking." "I've been running sir, I'm in jogging clothes and my dog is in the back of the car panting. " "Well sure, that's what you want me to think." REALLY? REALLY?

Scott and myself totally agree on this subject. I can only imagine what will be next if this bill is successful and gets passed. Random road blocks. Dangerous territory. We are a Democracy. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty. If we let this ridiculous bill enter our legislative system, we might as well kiss our freedom goodbye. I totally agree that something needs to be done about our over the top DWI/DUI percentages, but i honestly dont believe that infringing on random people's liberties will help all that much. Here's an idea. Why not make DPS take away all licenses of people 21 and younger. Statistics show that this age group accounts for 11 percent of DWI's in Texas. Here's the link - DWI. Honestly, being a huge college town, we are probably always going to have a huge DWI rate, and there will always be people slipping through the cracks. Setting up random barricades and making people hand over their information without cause is not the way to fix it.