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samuri,
Grow up mate, at least be reasonable
no copper is going to come into your house and lock you up for drunk in charge, the original question was valid, and i was trying to explain it, but as usual, it has degenerated into a stupid debate
The offence has nothing to do with driving, you could open the door and let the handbrake off for all the dibble care.
Buy one of those handbrake locks, use that and you can't move the car without that key, put key under bonnet and hey presto you cannot be 'in charge'. tell the copper your mate has the lock key and he's coming in the morning.
Grow up mate, at least be reasonable
It's a fairly non-extreme extrapolation of the law to reach that point though, while he is clearly playing devils advocate, they could, technically, do that and there's not really a difference if the law does not define what constitutes being in control of the vehicle or what presents reasonable likelyhood. sq above suggests locking the handbrake and telling the cop the key is with a mate (wouldnt you be staying at your mates house then?) - which is a fair point, there is NO way you could control the car, but in a normal situation it's easy enough to walk out the door and use the car.
When they were writing up the laws on drink driving I bet they didn't expect people would rush home, evading the police, and swig from a bottle of strong alcohol, then claim they were sober but decided to have a big stiff drink the moment they walked in the door (to avoid drink-drive charges). But they do do just that, I've even witnessed it first hand!
I regularly park up the van, crack open a beer before sleeping in the back, and this is something that has bothered me somewhat. So much so I've bypassed the ignition switch on the stereo and purchased one of these:
http://www.extremehorizon.com/acatalog/Keypod_car_key_safe.html
I would never encourage a stupid debate until I thought the original question had been answered sensibly. After that the thread is fair game.
None of these key-locking, hide it in your bonnet, roll over the key with your tyre type solutions are worth a jot - even when blind drunk I can open a combination lock if I know the code, so why would you assume it's a legal defense suggesting you're unable to use the car? If you need to lock it away it's tantamount to admitting you'd be tempted!