Sunday, May 19, 2013
Cafardo: Dustin Pedroia the best second baseman in MLB?
(www.bostonglobe.com)
Sweet spectroscopy! The argument is rolled out again!
Read More...It’s not surprising to hear what two scouts from each league, who both have watched a lot of the American League this year, say about Dustin Pedroia.
“Nobody is playing his position better in baseball right now than Pedroia,” said the AL scout. “He’s playing out of his mind. The plays he’s making — you just don’t see that stuff every day, but you see it with him every day. Honestly, I’m surprised he doesn’t get hurt ...
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1 2 3 >Horrible..irresponsible..yeah,yeah...but this is funny.
It reminds me of a video I saw one time where a couple of cops are dealing with a drunk-out-of-his-mind guy. One of the cops hands the guy a breathalizer device, and tells him to blow into it. The drunk guy thinks it's a bottle, and tips it back to take a drink from it. The two cops just crack up laughing.
I am also familiar with this road he was driving on, having driven on it once or twice myself. Unless much has changed in the last few years, it's a straight four lane divided highway with generally nothing on either side, and light traffic. (Mostly just RSW traffic, I guess.) I'm sure it sees more than its share of speeding, but there's no excuse for this.
The debit card thing is pretty damned funny though.
...you mean before the curb-jumping, right?
Indeed. I don't think I've had the pleasure of driving down that particular dirt road. Though four lane divided dirt highway would be pretty cool.
This is right on, no? For every drunk that gets pulled over there are probably 10 more that evening that make it home safely. I've driven when I probably shouldn't have. It didn't make go 110 in a 45 and jump curbs.
Well, see, that's where you and Britton are different. He WAS driving a bit carefully. Shoot, sober, his normal commute home would be going 140 in a 25 and jumping entire small buildings.
Speak for yourself.
We had one of these threads just recently that covered availability of options and such. I believe it was the Helton thread where we all just concluded if you make like a gazillion dollars, just use a car service. Obviously not applicable here.
I'm with 17. Once I have more then 2 beers, that's it, I don't drive(or ride as I'm normally on the motorbike) I taxi, train or walk home. Fortunately in Sydney, the first two options are readily available at any hour.
i don't drive after anything over zero. Never have.
and...here...we...go!
In the criminal-defense business, we call this a "bad fact."
Best exchange ever, from a college road trip in a friend's '87 Cadillac:
"How fast are you going?"
"I don't know! The speedometer stops at 85!!!"
Was this just a case of an out of control cop picking on an out of town tourist?
Yep. It's the most common criminal charge in the US. Just not enough cold-hit murder cases to keep the lights on.
Curiosity right back to the group: why do so many people distinguish between "DUI" and "criminal" cases? It would never have occurred to me that you could be a criminal defense lawyer and NOT handle DUIs, but I get asked that question a lot. I also don't know any CDLs who refuse to handle DUIs, but many who've chosen to advertise themselves as some variation of "Criminal Defense and DUI Attorney."
Which leaves me from 7pm Friday to 8am Sunday if I actually decide I want alcohol.
Two things:
Modern cars are built a lot more safely than they ever have been, so you can probably go faster than you reasonably could in older cars (from say, 30 to 40 years back. Nobody is driving a car from the 80's anymore, for instance. The oldest cars on the road today are from the early to mid 90s). And 2nd, the people who built roads and the people who decide speed limits are clearly not talking to each other since speed limits are comically under what the road will allow. You can drive most freeways in Southern California at around 75-80, and at some stretches up to 85 comfortably. Yet, the 'speed' limit is set at 65 MPH, and at 55 MPH on some roads. That's just the start of dumb traffic laws in the state.
Forget the sales tax, prop 13, same sex marriage, or whatever issue you deeply believe in. Whomever can tell me that they will reform the inane traffic laws in California will get my vote. Even if they're a Randian #######.
I haven't.
It was extraordinarily stupid and I have regretted it ever since.
It must be darn near impossible to get your license revoked. In the rehab class I had to attend, one of the participants was on DUI #6. How he's not confined to prison, much less behind a wheel again, is beyond me.
My convertible can do 110+ in a few seconds from freeway speeds. It's not a very expensive car, nor rare, and the manufacturer rates top speed at 165.
Of course, given my respect for America's great legal system, I've never driven it faster than 125, no matter how much it begs.
So, a Yaris can do it with a tailwind. I'm guessing just about any recent model can do 111. Maybe not much more, and many cars/trucks won't be safe/handle at all well at such speeds, but they can probably hit it.
Can't speak for an SUV, which is what Britton was driving. Those SOB'ss are pretty heavy. But I can attest that every car I have driven since I got my license in 01 could get to 111 easily enough.
So the 45 mph thing is some kind of speed trap? It being Florida, I would not be surprised. Otherwise, I find it hard to understand why the limit would be so low on the type of road you describe.
And I'm reasonably sure that my car actually could do 111, contrary to what I posted above. I doubt I'll test that, though.
The roads are well built. The cars are safer.
People remain morons who greatly overestimate their skills at all things, including driving skill.
I don't know. I'm not sure what section of the road he was on, and it's been a few years since I've been there. I'm actually more familiar with the road after it becomes Treeline, and goes past RSW airport to Daniels, and I gather Britton was south of there.
And what then became clear was just how long it takes to slow down when you're going 100+ MPH. You take the foot off the gas and coast, just let her ride, and after several minutes you think you're down to a reasonable speed, and you look down, and you're still doing 90. When you get down to 75 or 80, you feel as though you're creeping.
Yes. As a general rule, people are bad drivers. All of us. Yes, I see you back in the corner, you are a bad driver too.
But only one of us is a bad poster.
I'm driving the best I can while trying to post.
Is the defense to a DUI charge straightforward--as in, are there ten things on a checklist you look for, and in the absence of any of those ten things showing substantial mitigation, you advise a plea?
To answer your question, I guess in my case I don't automatically think of DUI's as criminal cases because when I grew up driving drunk was treated primarily as fodder for comedians. The connection came later and as a result it's like learning a foreign language as an adult. I can do it, but the connections are no longer automatic.
I don't think this is true, but I do think I'm one of the bad drivers, which probably makes me a safer driver than I would be without that awareness. I'm also aware at how utterly shitty many drivers are, which makes me the guy on the road who is farthest from other cars.
Your personal safety is only half of the reason for speed limits. The other half of it is the safety of the guy you're going to be running into, and from his perspective, getting hit by something doing 80 is going to suck no matter how many air bags or crumple zones it has.
A girl from my freshman dorm hit a tortoise on a lonely Arizona road like that one in the summer between junior and senior year. She wasn't doing 111, but she still rolled a kajillion times, and I heard they buried her closed-casket because she didn't have much of a head left.
Stay safe out there, everybody.
Kind of, but the lists are a lot longer than 10 things: there are MANY things that can be wrong if the evidence is a breath test, or a blood test, or "field sobriety tests," or manner of driving. And it's incredibly frustrating to defend against, because once anybody involved (DA, judge, jury) hears that high number, it's hard to get them to hear anything else.
But it's possible, though. I think it's worth fighting much more than it actually gets fought.
Not either of our family cars. However my motorbike does 265kph(about 160mph). This I know as fact as I was at the track and hit that on the radar gun. No, I had not been drinking beforehand.
I disagree. As someone who rides a motorbike, I see all sorts of stupidity, however most people are pretty good. All I ever ask is that you indicate when turning/changing lanes, stay off the phone(both call and text) and just pay attention to the road. It's really not that hard to be a decent driver.
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