Booze-Bus Locations? Illegal?

[Carden]

Hey guys,
I'm trying not to break any blue light/forum rules here, but feel free to edit if I do, my friendly moderators...
Two questions:

1 - Hypothetically, if I could find out where booze-buses (and drug-buses) were going to be deployed in my city... What kind of laws would I break if I made this information available on the internet or another other media?

2 - I'm certain that this has been done before... But how long do the websites stay up before they get busted up?


To be honest I don't know any police, let alone police with this sort of information, but surely someone could easily get this information and just throw it up on a geocities website with a fake name and stuff?

Just to clarify, I am not encouraging someone to do this, or thinking of doing this myself, I'm just curious. Blah, Blah... Blah.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

Well, I'm taking it that your talking about the AUS version - and I'm not all that familiar with the concept in those terms. In the US, there are Booze-buses, but it is generally an effort to save people from driving while under an influence, and it offers to haul people from the party back to a safe location. As such, I think anyone and everyone would want the info and to have it shared - party kids, cops, everyone - as it makes the roads safer for everyone.

I'm a little confused, because in reading your post, it almost sounds like it is a checkpoint arrangment to catch people driving and arrest them? Since I don't know better, I"m going to send this to AusDD and hopefully this can get sorted.

HOMELESS to AusDD

 

[Chronik Fatigue]

^^ Booze/Drug buses are trucks they set up to conduct random road-side breath/saliva tests to catch people driving under the influence.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

Ah, so then the police would be concerned about people alerting others Though, I'm not sure what they could do about it. I'll leave this to the mods to sort out if it would be a threat to the site to have such info discussed, since I'm not qualified to make such judgements.


I like our (US) Booze Bus concept better.

 

[Carden]

I like our (US) Booze Bus concept better.

How do yours work?

 

[Chronik Fatigue]

^^

In the US, there are Booze-buses, but it is generally an effort to save people from driving while under an influence, and it offers to haul people from the party back to a safe location.

 

[static_mind]

Sounds like he's talking about a curtisy bus, ferrys drunk people around. An Aussie booze bus is a Random Breath Testing bus where they pull over random cars and test them for booze.

 

[hoptis]

Have you seen this thread? It's Vic specific.

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=174370

I don't think this is an issue on BL because by the time people have posted about a drug bus sitting it would be gone by the time anyone reads it.

Setting up a dedicated site for this is different, I remember NSW police shutting down a site that did this with booze buses... I think.

 

[Chronik Fatigue]

^^ Yeah but if the server was .ru based...

 

[Adic]

a random breath test in australia is nick named a booze bus, a bunch of cops on the side of the road who pull cars over and check the drivers to see if they are under the influence of alcohol, which in australia is a blood alcohol limit of 0.05.

im guessing a booze bus for u guys is what we call a courtesy bus, a bus that drives people either home from a pub/club or to a certain spot where they can get home from. in some places we also have buses that drive around between all the pucs and clubs in a certain area and pick people up and drop them off for free.

in australia an rbt (random breath test) which we commonly call a booze bus, doesnt actually involve any buses. dont ask me why we call it a booze bus, we just do

 

[schmangle]

curious: what law would you be breaking if you put up this info on the web? is there such a law? can we transfer to legal forum?

 

[lil angel15]

Last year there was a company in Queensland that was providing the locations of RBTs, speed cameras and other traffic problems by SMS. The owner of the company withdrew the service of providing the location of RBT sites after requests from the Police and Queensland transport. This led to a change in legislation making services like these illegal.

 

[lil angel15]

Breath-test text alerts stopped
By Roberta Mancuso
January 12, 2006 03:32pm

THE creator of a controversial text messaging service in Queensland has withdrawn alerts on random breath testing (RBT) sites after pressure from road authorities.

Road Spy, which uses SMS alerts to warn paid subscribers on the locations of RBT, speed cameras and traffic jams, came under fire from the State Government, police and the RACQ for "gambling with the lives of motorists".
The service was launched on the Gold Coast on Monday.

Its creator, Adam Bush, today said he had withdrawn the RBT site alert component of his service to forge better relationships with road authorities.

But he said Road Spy would continue to send RBT alerts to its present members who had opted to receive them for the duration of their subscription, or until the company was required to stop sending them by law.

"The feedback that we got from RACQ and the Queensland Government ... obviously it wasn't condoning that section of the service," Mr Bush said.

"We were hoping to play an active role in road safety, and to do that I believe that we needed relations with those departments and in order to keep those relationships, we withdrew that part of the service."

Mr Bush refused to concede the concept was ever a "bad idea" but said the company would remove its RBT alerts option for new subscribers by tomorrow.

Queensland Police Minister Judy Spence yesterday condemned the initiative, flagging new legislation to be introduced later this year to ban services that make profits from advising motorists about RBT sites.

Comment was being sought from the minister.

RACQ spokesman Gary Fites said Road Spy's decision to pull the RBT alerts was a "recognition of the fact that such a facility provides no road safety benefit whatsoever".

"In fact, it served only to aid and abet drunk drivers to avoid detection, putting the lives of innocent road users at risk," he said.

Mr Bush said Road Spy would continue its other services.

It would also fill the void left by the RBT alerts with more warnings on traffic light failures and road hazards such as fallen trees and flooding, he said.

News.com.au

 

[lil angel15]

24A Unlawful SMS messages etc.

(1) A person must not, in trade or commerce, provide, in
Queensland or elsewhere, a service of informing another
person of the location of a traffic enforcement site for the
purpose of, or that has the effect of, enabling the other person
to avoid, or be prepared for, a check made at the site.
Maximum penalty—100 penalty units.

(2) For subsection (1), a person provides a service of informing
another person of the location of a traffic enforcement site if
the person makes information about the location of a traffic
enforcement site available to the other person by a relevant
message.

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to the provider of a telephone
service or an internet service provider only because another
person uses the provider’s telephone or internet service to
inform someone else of the location of a traffic enforcement
site.

(4) In this section—

internet message means a message that may be viewed by a
person on a website.

message includes information in any form, whether or not for
a particular person.

relevant message means any of the following that informs a
person of the location of a traffic enforcement site—

(a) an internet message;
(b) an SMS message;
(c) another type of message that may be heard, read or​

otherwise viewed by a person using a mobile phone.
SMS message means a text message sent using the mobile
phone service known as the short messaging service.

traffic enforcement site means a place being used by a police
officer to perform random or systematic checks of compliance
by drivers with the Transport Operations (Road Use
Management) Act 1995.

Examples of traffic enforcement site—

• the site of a speed camera
• a random breath test site
• a vehicle safety check site​

Summary Offences Act 2005

 

[8L4YN3]

Last year there was a company in Queensland that was providing the locations of RBTs, speed cameras and other traffic problems by SMS. The owner of the company withdrew the service of providing the location of RBT sites after requests from the Police and Queensland transport. This led to a change in legislation making services like these illegal.

Do you watch the news programs? Every afternoon they tell you were the speed cameras are.

 

[time traveler]

This could well be the future.

Even though it would be highly illegal what would stop a pirate site from popping up with a wikified database of RBT locations etc.

I predict these will become especially popular when phones with internet browsers become more widespread/affordable.

 

[tribesman]

in australia an rbt (random breath test) which we commonly call a booze bus, doesnt actually involve any buses. dont ask me why we call it a booze bus, we just do

In WA at least there is often an actual police 'Booze Bus' parked at the site of an RBT. I'm not really sure what the point of this is however since they can also set them up with some witches cones and police in cars.

 

[Adic]

In WA at least there is often an actual police 'Booze Bus' parked at the site of an RBT. I'm not really sure what the point of this is however since they can also set them up with some witches cones and police in cars.

When a standard RBT takes your reading, the reading they take will not stand up in court. When they take your reading, and if it is above the legal limit, they then need to have your reading taken by a special mobile unit which is calibrated before and after every reading, and THIS reading will stand up in court.

The ones your talking about with this other bus there probably have it on standby to take the reading that will hold up in court, rather than have to deal with the lost time waiting for the unit to arrive to take it.

Makes sense to me.

 

[peaked]

Interesting topic. Here in SA (or atleast around my area), its pretty much common curtesy to warn other drivers of imminent speed cameras or booze buses by flashing your car lights - I wonder if that would be considered "illegal", since its not exactly directly telling someone (as in, there are other reasons why one could argue they flashed their headlights).

It's pretty common to see locations of speed cameras told through various media, though I don' think I've seen booze bus locations get mentioned before. I guess thats because speed is something you can lower while driving, compared to a high BAC level which will be over the limit regardless of what you do in the car.

 

[Splatt]

Last year there was a company in Queensland that was providing the locations of RBTs, speed cameras and other traffic problems by SMS. The owner of the company withdrew the service of providing the location of RBT sites after requests from the Police and Queensland transport. This led to a change in legislation making services like these illegal.

Still works on GPS maps/trackers for cars