An argument could also be made that an increasing number of DUI charges do not result from accidents, but are based on the suspicion that alcohol is present in relation to location and time of night;
Okay, so let's pose it as a question: do you think you should be able to pop off a couple random shots in an urban area for no good reason, provided they don't actually hit anybody? Or do you accept that there are some actions that are inherently dangerous and negligent enough that they should be prohibited and prosecuted
regardless of whether they managed to injure/kill another person in that instance?
An argument could also be made that an increasing number of DUI charges do not result from accidents, but are based on the suspicion that alcohol is present in relation to location and time of night; and those charged are right on the margine of what is the current legal limit (which continues to be moved lower all the time, making it more difficult for a person to judge their own safety behind the wheel) with no way to know if they are or aren't over the limit but are treated and charged just as harshly as someone who is blatently over the limit and chooses to drive anyway.
That's a load of BS. You have
every way of knowing you aren't over the limit. For starters, there's simply not drinking before driving. You're
definitely good to go then. If you want to put a little more time into it, there are plenty of
BAC calculators that should give you an idea of a "safe" (legally) number of drinks to have. I wouldn't trust it as you get closer to the legal limit in your state, but it seems to suggest that I can have two or three beers and be just fine legally.
I guess you're correct in that there's no way of knowing if you're
over, but it's actually incredibly easy to know for a fact that you are
under.
With every additional drink, you are making a conscious choice to increase your BAC and increase your risk of getting pegged with a DUI. You are also increasing your risk of driving impaired, since part of the reason for DUI laws is that people who are impaired are often unable to tell when they are impaired. There is a giant "grey area" where you aren't drunkenly stumbling around but probably shouldn't be operating a motor vehicle.
EDIT: Upon further reflection it seems as though you may only have issue with such measures as DUI checkpoints, where all (or some portion of) traffic is stopped and checked for sobriety. Yeah, I'm not a fan of those, either. I'd say there are plenty of other ways to drum up an excuse to pull somebody over (everything from equipment violations to petty traffic violations) and check sobriety. If somebody drive without breaking any laws, from speeding down to changing lanes without signaling...well, I'd prefer they be left alone.
Not because I think that those who are over the legal limit but still able to drive effectively have some sort of "right" to do so, or because I give a crap if somebody with a higher tolerance can have that one last beer before jumping behind the wheel...I just think random traffic stops in general are a horrible tactic as far as civil liberties are concerned, and I don't think the end justifies the means.