Sorry I didn't emoticon the sarcasm. I think it's fine where it is. More jut annoyed at the "oohhhh it's for safety" when a true solution to the problem is something they won't do.

I'm with you on both traction control and Anti lock brakes. Traction control actually makes it harder for me during the winter cause I was taught how to drive in that crap. I turn it off most of the time.

Many that is true, but an incomplete statement.

Yeah, not sure this is gonna make a huge difference in drunk driving. Just revenue.

SalemNews.com, Salem, MA
March 15, 2013
Police: Wrong-way driver was drunk

BY JULIE MANGANIS
STAFF WRITER

Trena Baron managed to make it six miles going the wrong way on Route 128 early Sunday before she was stopped and arrested, police said.

When state troopers offered her a Breathalyzer test and tried to explain how it works, she responded, “I know how these tests work. I have one in my car,” according to police.

That’s because she has two previous drunken-driving convictions, police said.

Baron, 27, of Nashua, N.H., wasn’t using her own car, though, as she allegedly drove south in the northbound lanes of Route 128 from Gloucester to Beverly shortly before 4 a.m., nearly colliding head-on with at least one driver and triggering “multiple” 911 calls to police.

Trooper James Maloney finally managed to intercept the Kia with California plates somewhere between exits 17 and 18 in Beverly.

When Baron rolled down the window, Maloney wrote, the trooper was “overwhelmed” by the strong odor of alcohol coming from inside the car.

“What did I do?” Baron asked, according to the report. Told she had been going the wrong way, Baron’s passenger chimed in, “I’ve been telling her that for the last 10 minutes,” police said.

Baron insisted she’d had just two glasses of wine, but police said she was slurring her words and unsteady on her feet and went on to fail several field sobriety tests. She was arrested on charges of third-offense drunken driving, bypassing an interlock device requirement, driving to endanger, driving the wrong way on a state highway and driving a vehicle with a suspended registration.

On the way to the barracks in Danvers, Baron was talkative, repeatedly asking to be taken home to Nashua, the trooper wrote in his report.

Her tone was more aggressive at the barracks, however, as she became insulting, suggesting that Maloney was “just a cop,” while “I can be whatever I want to be,” according to the report. She allegedly accused police of planning to steal her jewelry when she was asked to take it off, a routine part of being placed in custody.

And on the phone to a friend, she asked for a ride home and instructed the person to bring along a “30-pack” of beer, police said.

While Baron had a valid New Hampshire license, it allowed her to drive only a car with an ignition interlock device that requires a breath sample before it will start.

She was convicted of drunken driving in Arizona in 2006 and 2010, including one case that involved a charge of “extreme” drunken driving. (In Arizona, a blood alcohol level of 0.15 or more is considered extreme.)

Baron did not complete a Breathalyzer test this time.

An assistant clerk magistrate agreed to release her on $1,000 cash bail, which was posted Sunday afternoon.

Baron was supposed to appear in Salem District Court for arraignment on Wednesday morning but didn’t show up until the afternoon.

Prosecutor Patrick Collins filed a motion seeking to have her held without bail as a danger to the public. She was put in custody, and after a brief hearing, Judge Matthew Machera agreed, deeming Baron too dangerous to release.

A pretrial hearing was scheduled for April 16.

I went to the cubs game last night. I had 4 beers over about 3 and a half hours and then drove home.

You can also forget driving to work the next morning if you got lit up at home watching monday night football late the night before. For a average person that consumed 12 beers partying hard from 8-12 they could have a .05 at 6 the next morning.

Maybe I'm way out of the loop. There is no way sitting at home drinking 12 beers in 4 hours is the "average guy"? Maybe the average guy at an AA meeting.

He did say partying hard which I think means not an everyday thing


Unless he's a big fat party animal