What Everyone Should Know About The Drunk Driving Problem
November 8th, 2007 Posted in DUI/DWI
We frequently hear that drunk drivers "cause 50% of all highway fatalities." This falls into the category of "tell a big enough lie long enough and loud enough and people will believe it."
The truth is closer to 10% of all highway fatalities are caused by drunk drivers. This certainly isn’t good, but let’s at least put the issue in perspective.
Our government and certain self serving "non-profit" organizations have exaggerated this problem beyond any sense of reality to promote an agenda that eliminates basic individual rights, undermines our system of due process and heaps onerous penalties on people who have not injured anyone and may not have met any reasonable standard of "impairment."
So where do the numbers that we hear being repeated time after time come from?
The "government speak" term is "alcohol-related." This term was created to deliberately mislead and confuse the general public about the magnitude of the drunk-driving problem.
When you hear some "expert" state that 40 or 50 percent of all fatal accidents are "alcohol-related," the intention is to make you believe that drunk drivers are responsible for causing all these fatalities. This is pure propaganda.
The federal government defines an alcohol-related fatal traffic accident as an accident where someone died and a person involved in the accident had some measurable amount of alcohol in his or her system. For example:
- A sober driver hits a pedestrian who has been drinking, even modestly. That’s considered an alcohol-related accident.
- A sober driver rear-ends a driver that has had something to drink. That’s considered an alcohol-related accident.
- A driver has a single drink and is involved in a fatal accident that he did not cause. That’s considered an alcohol-related accident.
Do these sound like "drunk-driver-caused" accidents to you? That’s what the government and the anti-drinking organizations would like you to believe.
Unfortunately, the media often parrots back the "alcohol-related" statistics to the general public which inevitably prompts people to push for more and more draconian penalties.
The common response when this misinformation is pointed out is for people to say, "Well, just don’t drink and drive and you won’t have to worry about it." This is disingenuous at best. The truth is that these laws will certainly affect many drivers who never even had a sip of alcohol.
The constant stream of misinformation over the years has created a hysteria about drunk driving. This hysteria has made normally rational people line up to give away their constitutional rights. The sad thing is that these rights are being given up for nothing. They’re being given up for the illusion of safety.
It’s worth noting that the NMA does not support drunk driving. No rational organization does.
Other Related Articles
- Vengeance, Bad Data Make For Terrible DUI/DWI Policy
- A Blueprint For Reasonable Drunk Driving Laws
- Drinking Improves Highway Safety (Apparently)
- Traffic Safety Hysteria: How The Media Misleads You With Statistics
- Have You Been Misled By A Common Statistical Error?
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I think every person that drinks should have to pay for a alcohol driving test.When that person is is impaird knock it down 2 points .put it on the driver license.If your over ?thats it.We all handle drinks different.Please .08.Some people are that all the time.Not a drinker just a thinker
Please go the web site I attached with this comment. The website gives crash facts for the State of Minnesota. You can click on the impaired driving link and get Minnesota’s impaired driving stats. You will find two points of interest. The information the writer of the above article addresses is not a secret, is not hidden and is not propoganda. The informatiion is plainly stated in the statistical summary. Also, efforts are made to determine the alcohol levels of drivers and in many cases the alcohol level of the driver causing the crash is plainly known. As much as we can assume in an alcohol-related crash an impaired person was not at fault, we can likewise assume the opposite, that they were. The number of instances of one person having one drink and hitting, or being hit by, another person resulting in a fatality is negligible. If no one drinks and drives, the numbers go way down.
Other states may have different stats. In other words….it’s an inexact science. I like the “alcohol related” phrase. That can encompass almost anything. Stats change almost as fast as the most popular diets. I remember a few years ago when a American Airlines jet crashed into a mountain down in Columbia or somewhere like that and investigators found trace amounts of alcohol. Anti drinking jeolots (Prohibitionists) immediately jumped right on it saying thats what caused the crash. Since the crash was in such a remote area investigators took several days to reach the crash site and consequently the bodies had started to decompose. It was later discovered that decaying tissue can produce trace amounts of alcohol. So much for that theory but it does help to demonstrate the jealousness behind this movement. The anti-smoking bunch is just about as bad. When are you people going to turn humanity into perfect beings?
And I especially like your last statement “If no one drinks and drives, the numbers go way down”. I’m not so sure they will go WAY down. And with a little teasing of your statement “If no one drinks” I believe one can coax out the real intent behind your statement. That’s what prohibition is all about, the entire country is dry all the time, e.g. NO ONE drinks. Zero tolerance. I got ‘ya. Not that I have anything against Muslims but maybe you need to move to a Muslim country.
After prohibition, prohibitionists found out that they weren’t able to outright outlaw alcohol. Now the modern version has become the “back door” approach to the situation which was been carefully crafted to embrace zero tolerance and to edge us in that direction as a nationwide standard and MADD and it’s choir of prohibitionists couldn’t be happier. If we were by some chance to eliminate all alcohol accidents they’d find some other cause to take up because they are so used to the limelight. Alcohol and humans go back to the start of humanity. Good luck on eliminating it unless we become a Taliban nation. Maybe you would like that but please leave me out.
There are thousands of businesses in my state and every other one that pay millions of dollars in taxes that are licensed to sell alchohol by the glass. Every one of them has a parking lot. Contrary to the views expressed by some contributers on this sight the supreme court has ruled that simply patronizing a lawful business establishment is not grounds for probable suspicion. Police however routinely sit on these businesses and stop people pulling out of the parking lot. If they happen to get lucky on a breathylizer(or perhaps pad it) then they have to concoct valid grounds for the stop i.e. weaving within the lane lane,driving at or below the speed limit(some academies teach their trainess that this is a valid reason for a stop), 3 people in the car etc. Why nwould anyone believe that if you give police awards for lying about everything else they wouldn’t lie about a poiunt or two on a breathylizer.
I hate to say it but I drive better after a few drinks than 99% of the drivers in Miami!
obviosly the people posting these stories have never had someone close to them either injured or killed by someone who was proven to be intoxicated at the time of a tragic motor vehicle crash and or a motorcycle, pedesrian that was intoxicated read the paper these are not made up numbers they are proven cases and a breathalizer has been proven to be accurate within 2 percentae points so let us save our chidren,adults,and familys from this horrible tragitys that are happening on americas roadways and not try to shoot down people that spend thier lives trying to prevent this same thing happening to someone you are close to see things as they are
To Robert Zink:
First, please accept my condolences for your loss.
The fact that you have suffered such a loss is evidence on its face that the current approach of draconian enforcement techniques is not preventing these tragedies.
From what I read, I gather that most “drunk drivers” who cause serious injury or death are very drunk, i.e. way past the legal limit and often have multiple drunk driving convictions.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but the current approach is not working.
Just wanted to add, as one of the cops upthread pointed out “when I’m done collecting evidence, I don’t need a breathalyzer to prove impairment.”
That’s the key: IMPAIRMENT. It really doesn’t matter that some arbitrary level of whatever substance has been exceeded in one’s bodily fluids. Frankly the substance and quantity thereof I choose to ingest is none of the government’s business.
The only question a cop should have to answer is “can you safely operate your vehicle”?
We all know the guy who can put away a twelver and not seem to notice and we all know the other guy who gets tipsy walking past a bar. The rest of us are somewhere in between.
One-size-fits-all-zero-tolerance-prior-restraint law enforcement not only does not work, it is unconstitutional.
I have had someone close to me impaired seriously in what may have been an “alcohol related” incident. However, I also believe the current laws/fines/penalties on the books are way over the line. One’s tolerance is different human to human and the law in my state is now “per se” which now ruins anyone’s life because law enforcement is over zealous and receives bonuses for focusing on DUIs. It’s time the public be made fully aware of all the details with the 2004 law. Like employment and labor law signs, some smart politician should campaign to have mandatory signage at all establishments describing just how
the penalties work. I believe the average Joe going out for dinner has no clue his life stands to be totally destroyed if he choses to have even one alcoholic beverage.
Wow, that makes me feel more comfortable. Now I can drink and drive and not feel so bad. Thanks for the pep talk!
We have a tendency, either in this country, or as a species, to want to punish as a solution. One form of this is to abridge others’ freedoms in an attempt to achieve goals which are almost always stated in ways that make them difficult to challenge. Who wants to go on record as being in favor of death by drunk driver, for example?
But just as penalties for crimes seldom, if ever, deter the commission of crimes, neither do the laws against drinking and driving prevent what we could probably all agree is the tragedy of maiming and death in automobile crashes.
Do we need stiffer penalties when the ones we have do not appear to be sufficient protection? Could we not use our technology to create vehicles that cannot be operated in an unsafe manner? Is it worth trying? Drivers can be impaired by distractions such as cell phone conversations, unruly children in the car, or scantily clad women on the sidewalk. Drivers can be impaired by being lost in thought, by being in a rage, by feelings of despair. How are we going to respond to these issues?
How about a car that can monitor the way the driver is behaving before its engine can be started, and if the driver seems to be a threat to the rest of us, he finds that his car simply refuses to start? It’s a thought. What if the driver is half crazed with fear because she’s being pursued by a rapist, and her car won’t start because she’s upset? Clearly I don’t have all the answers, but as J.S. Mill pointed out, “it’s a rare mind that is in possession of the entire truth.”
I don’t think our present system is working. It might make some of us feel righteous, but it’s not keeping seriously impaired drivers off the road, for whatever reasons they’re impaired. We need to do better, not just do more of what’s not been working.
I have lost two sons, they were just kids and they rode with drivers that were very drunk.We need to really instill in everyones minds, NOT to ride with anyone who has been drinking anything or in any amount.Drinking isn`t the only reason for tragic car accidents, some people should never have a drivers license,because they are not careful, or just don`t care.Drinking and driving do not mix, designated drivers, who have to stay sober is necessary.There is so much traffic, now days, that even skilled drivers are at risk as is anyone who moves beyond their driveways.Scares me just driving to Wal Mart.Keep eyes on the road, be aware of the vehicles around you,it is not a game out there on the roads and streets.Driving is a priviledge, and most of us appreciate that, but there are always those who do not, drunk or sober.
You know what i think. People that drink and drive should lose there drivers for at least a year. And maybe ya you had a drink or two but that is still a drink or two to many. There are things called taxis you know and it wouldnt hurt you to take one. Wouldn’t you say its better to take a taxi then to take someones life. Think before you drink and drive im going to be 18 soon and i dont want to drive around if people are drink and driveing. So people please think before you do anything and ask your self is it worth it
Want to get a real scare? Listen to (LA talk show host) Tom Leykis a few days before Xmas.
Tom does at least two hours of “call in if you are right now drinking and driving.” There is no shortage of callers and the really shocking revelation is that many of the callers are driving 18-wheelers and they are not just drinking, they are DRUNK.
But he does it to illustrate one very important fact: the current prohibition against drunk driving and the enforcement techniques are largely ineffective.
Then you realize as you are rolling down the road listening to your fellow motorists tell their tales of freeway revelry that they are not only driving drunk with relative impunity but they are talking on the phone too!
Let’s try to keep certain facts in mind in our discussion of drunk driving.
Drinking and driving and drunk driving are two separate animals. We conflate them at our peril. Most folks can consume a certain amount of alcohol with no discernible impairment in motor skills, visual/spatial perception, judgment, eye-hand coordination or any of the other necessary requirements to successfully navigate modern traffic. The question is how much is too much.
Naturally, none of us wants impaired drivers on the road with us. However, the draconian measures and intrusive law enforcement (LE) excused in the name of public safety carry a very high price that none of us should be willing to accept.
Note the myriad problems with translating alcohol consumption into a degree of impairment that exceeds the level of danger to the rest of us, beyond which we ask public authority to step in. Unfortunately, law enforcement and the shrill voices of neo-prohibition in their eagerness to impose their personal morality and institutionalism have swamped the voices of reason.
Law enforcement measures the alcohol content of a suspect’s breath (quite inaccurately it turns out) and then calls that result a BAC or blood-alcohol content. Then, any BAC value over a rather arbitrary point fixed by politicians with their own set of interests is deemed to be impaired driving. What may impair me to a degree where I should not be driving at, say, 0.06, may not impair you until 0.10.
The real issue is that LE measures one thing and then imputes at least two more, even though they may not correspond consistently to the first measure. What LE really wants to know – or what they SHOULD want to know – is how impaired is a given driver. That measurement is very difficult to obtain and modern LE is predicated upon the premise that efficiency is paramount, even at the cost of removing the very things that they are supposed to be protecting.
Do I support impaired driving? Not at all. However, we should be very skeptical of the movement represented by MADD, SADD and all the other neo-prohibitionists. Their movement focuses on stopping the drinking rather than the more effective measures of stopping the driving. New Mexico has given us some good results with their enlightened approach in using ignition interlocks and other measures to prevent the drinker from driving rather than preventing the driver from drinking. We should all learn from their experience.
A growing issue with impaired drivers is not alcohol but sleep deprivation, the fastest growing characteristic of all crashes. We have had a huge increase in single-car ran-off-the-road crashes a very common characteristic of drivers who fell asleep (or suicide, another growing phenomenon) , but driving while sleepy is not even defined as impaired driving and is not even illegal. So much for the claims of the safety nannies that they only doing it for our own good.
Finally, note that the vast majority of fatal “alcohol-involved” crashes involve people with extremely high concentrations of alcohol, double or triple the current legal limit. Yet, our response is to enlarge the population of drunks by defining “drunk” downward to the point of ridiculousness. Why do we do this? Well, it seems with more drunks on the roads that we need more police and more intrusive measures to combat this “problem.” That is the typical LE response to a very limited but very concentrated problem because it expands their institutional and political power.
I am appalled at how citizens are treated if they happen to be pulled over or stopped @ a checkpoint and found to be “DUI”. A good majority of people who may have had only 1 or 2 drinks, and who are perfectly capable of “safely operating a vehicle” are turned into the scum of the earth and labeled as “baby killers” even when there wasn’t an accident.
People that support the new laws have to understand that MOST of the new breed of DUI offenders are responsible citizens. They work hard, take care of their families, and are law abiding productive members of society. Once these people are sucked into the “DUI epidemic”, their Constitutional Rights are tossed aside, they are penalized excessively, they run the risk of going to jail, losing their jobs and all of a sudden are no longer “productive members of society”. Now they are the worst criminals in the world and what has been accomplished?
Laws should not be created as a means of revenge for people who have lost loved ones because of “seriously” drunk drivers. It is sad that people are killed by drunk drivers, but it’s also sad that people are killed in plane crashes, robberies and by domestic violence. Yet I don’t see domestic violence or murder checkpoints
People die unnecessarily and that has always been a fact of life, but does turning 200,000 plus people a year into criminals make anyone feel better especially since the numbers of drunk driving fatalities has not decreased?
The government has to take a hard look at these laws before we have a country full of criminals.
When there aren’t enough criminals, make them
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers.”
Ayn Rand – (1905-1982) Author
When she used her cell phone to report a possible drunk driver she slammed into my wifes car killing my family
Anyone who cries about DUI/DWI laws is someone who a) doesnt know what they are talking about and b) clearly cannot accept responsibility for their actions.
And anyone who is charged with DUI/DWI and claims to only have had “a drink or two” is an absolute liar. It is physically impossible to consume two drinks and be over the .08% limit.
Steve:
Your paragraphs contradict each other unless you meant “under” rather than “over” in the last sentence.
You also make several unsupported generalizations. Let’s see some evidence.
I find myself in traffic court every two or three years – usually for speeding 15-18mph over the limit. I typically accept this as a risk of motoring, and usually the ticketing officer is right on the money regarding my speed (except for the last time).
Having said this, whenever I show up for court, I wind up seeing a bunch of young people in their early 20’s waiting for their preliminary DUI/DWI hearing – their lives about to be altered forever.
The problem with the entire system is that it’s purely geared to generate revenue. It almost seems that the City or State want these individuals to fail over and over again because it generates more revenue both for them and the lobbying insurance companies.
1. They get a near permanent scar on their record which future employers may examine.
2. The financial penalties of paying fines, lawyers and doubled or tripled insurance rates can put some young people over the financial edge and back to their parent’s house.
3. If they truly have a drinking problem (which most probably don’t), the system offers nothing to rehabilitate them, while forcing mostly straight individuals into attending AA classes.
Similarly, the last time I went into court to appear before the judge after plea-bargaining my speeding case to a lesser charge, the city of Lonetree Colorado offered no option for community service of any sort. All of the fines went to the city of Lonetree with some small portion going to “victim’s assistance fund”.
Community service is a great equalizer for those of high and low income groups … however exuberant fines and lawyer fees feed a system which cannot survive without exponentially creating more criminals.
I would feel much better about the repercussions of a “crime” being a requirement to serve at a nursing home, or picking up trash, or painting a government building than filling the pockets of attorneys and buying new police equipment so that new revenue could be generated from more “criminals”.
Put offender’s idle time to good use. There are productive and effective ways to discipline offenders (esp first timers) without creating criminals out of them, along with supporting an entire legal and rehabilitative cottage industry around these offenses.
Why don’t they do this? $$$$$$$$ – nuff said.
I am doing a report on people that drive drunk, becasue they are hang out at a bar are a friends house, I have use some of the information that i found on this page for my report i think if people had a better understand how this effects people maybe they would think twice about some of the things they do.
I strongly support your choice of drunk driving and its effects on society as a topic for a research paper.
However, this site is not suitable as an academic source because too many people without credentials or knowledge can and have posted at will. I urge you to take the next step and seek out the original sources, the studies from legitimate universities and government sites, for these are more credible than such agenda-driven places as IIHS.
Best of luck on your paper. Knock their socks off!
this is to robert zink:
hey buddy, sorry for the loss, but the fact is, sobber drivers kill way more people than drunk drivers. George Gordon told a story on the air about his dad being killed by a sobber driver who was to tired to drive and fell asleep at the wheel. Also, what about the accidents and deaths that happen as a direct result of police presents and not alchol. Hell, my father was disabled because of a sobber driver who had fell asleep at the wheel.
I’m sorry for the loss, but facts are facts and propaganda is propaganda.
“A sober driver hits a pedestrian who has been drinking, even modestly. That’s considered an alcohol-related accident.”. That IS an alcohol-related accident if the pedestrians alcohol consumption is what caused him to walk in front of a vehicle. Just as I am sure you did not try to deliberately mislead anyone, the fact is, it is alcohol-related, no one is misleading the public with this.
{That IS an alcohol-related accident if the pedestrians alcohol consumption is what caused him to walk in front of a vehicle. Just as I am sure you did not try to deliberately mislead anyone, the fact is, it is alcohol-related, no one is misleading the public with this.}
Nonsense. The idea was and is to conflate alcohol involvement with DRUNK DRIVING, to deliberately mislead the public. There is a significant difference but NHTSA (or IIHS or AAA or AHS) do not want you to make that critical distinction.
Here is the problem with driving down the BAC limits:
Cops waste their time chasing after people who had a little bobble while driving and have to waste their time processing those people instead of chasing down those who pass out and ram into somebody. If these “bobbles” such as coming to a rolling stop or drifting happened in the daytime, NOBODY WOULD CARE!
Think about all of the bad driving you see on a daily basis. Think of how many people speed, run red lights, act aggressive, tailgate, change lanes without looking, talk on their cell phones, etc. and ask yourself if your life is in any better shape driving next to these people. Can you imagine if all of THOSE people, who drove like that SOBER (as in, they had full mental capacity but fully decided to endanger your life because of either their inattentiveness or because they figure that it’s your job to stay on the look-out for them and throw on your brakes if they cut you off) were all arrested and had their licenses stripped from them?
Yet, we let all of these people drive around like it is no big deal that they drive like this 24/7 while a “drunk” person, who usually is driving straight on home, is on the road a fraction of that time.
With DWI (and low BAC’s in particular) we’ve isolated one small segment of drivers and hystericized the risk that they impose to the average person. It is an easy to prosecute crime where the cops don’t have to chase down suspects, get fingerprints, find the loot, spend taxpayer money on trials, use prison or jail resources to house 98% of them, and so forth. In return, they get rewarded with a chunk of change when the driver has to pay outlandish fees, and get an increase in funds from the state and federal governments when they argue that they need “more” money.
I’ve personally never bought into the “implied consent” argument that somebody cooked up to justify the inability to refuse the breathalyzer. Some crazy court decided that “well, driving is a privilege and therefore, we can force you to incriminate yourself with a breath test because you happened to make a wide left-hand turn at 2am.”
Yet, you know what? If i leave the house and have a pound of marijuana in my car, they can’t just randomly pull me over and force me to open my trunk. Since driving is a privilege, I should be forced to open up my car at any given moment and allow it to be searched by any cop who demands it. As a matter of fact, walking down the street is a privilege. If I make eye-contact with a cop that bothers him in some way, I should be subjected to strip-searches on a whim. Owning a house is a privilege as well. If a cop comes knocking, I should be forced to throw my door wide open if he wants to take a look around. Having an e-mail account is a privilege. If the government wants to read everything I send out even though I’ve done nothing wrong, that’s OK because nobody forced me to pay $30 a month for this service. Owning a phone is a privilege as well. I’m all for it being tapped without any evidence that I “did” something.
So, what IF that person who was arrested gets away with DWI because we couldn’t force them to take an incriminating test and the cops otherwise have no evidence that they were actually intoxicated (i.e., they didn’t run off the road)? You’ve still:
1. Scared the bejesus out of that person to where they might be more careful next time.
2. Still have taken a potentially “drunk” person off the road at that moment.
If a person was driving well enough that the cops can’t convict without a breathalyzer, that person shouldn’t have been arrested to begin with.
The people who don’t learn their lesson by temporarily sitting in a jail cell for the night and continue to drive around with .18 limits are people that you can’t do anything with other than predict that they’ll die at age 40 of liver failure. I don’t care how stringent you make the laws for first-time offenders. That is why police resources should be freed up to chase down the obviously dangerous people instead of worrying about people who drive like normal people.
The assumption that Bad driving is a killer is generally accepted. Government is trying to make you believe that Drink driving = Bad driving. This falsity implies/leads to another, even more dangerous one: Sober driving = Good driving. The latter falsehood of the conclusion causes way more crashes than alcohol consumption. If tomorrow we all stop drinking and driving the road toll will be practically the same, that is for sure.
I know people who have been in multiple accidents because they can’t drive while being sober. What is their excuse? Do you know why a lot of those people haven’t killed anyone? Because they drive in the daytime. The roads are more congested with commuters. Therefore, they are probably only traveling at 30 MPH and driving attentively before they hit someone versus someone who is flying down the road and being distracted by their rowdy friends and loud stereo late at night.
Face it: many of these “DWI incidents” were bound to happen because of the circumstances. At night people are relaxed, not on guard for problems, have poor night vision, probably have a car full of friends, are tired because it’s past their bedtime, are probably texting their buddies to see where the party is. Granted, someone who is completely wasted and driving down the wrong way has no excuse, but in all of my years of driving, I think there has only been two times when I saw how somebody is driving and thought that they needed to be pulled over for being a menace because they were obviously drinking. That’s it. When I go out at night, I don’t see throngs of people who are engaged in “drunk driving.” Most of the time when I see somebody weaving or driving slow, they are either some old person or they are on their cell phone. That’s the harsh truth, folks.
4/29/08:
11/13/07- John B.,
I just pulled up this article and agree with you. I suffer from an acute anxiety condition which makes me quite high-strung. Years ago I would have a few ( two and no more beers because three gives my head the buzz) drinks. Mixed drinks are another story.
I do not drink any alcoholic beverage excessively. I never realized the difference alcohol and drugs made in peoples attitudes and performance until the laws concerning drinking legally and prescription drugs affected not only my driving, but all driving on public roads in general.
12/8/07: Candy LaChance has a great comment. It fits me to a tee. Over two decades ago I stopped and had two beers over a one hour period at a bar and drove home. I was going 72 mph in a 65 zone on a state highway and saw a State Trooper coming from the opposite direction. I knew I was in trouble because fresh beer on ones breath will automaticall y register .08% and legally drunk. I do not know if newer equipment will do this. I pulled into a hidden drive and hid in the woods and let him pass several times before I came out of hiding. I was not worried about the speeding ticket, but the fact that it would have taken a lot of explaining about beer on my breath caused me to panic. This panic is a source condition of Anxiety Disorders. Lawyers love these cases because people who have the money to confuse the issue do so. When I thought I was safe I came out and continued when he pulled in behind me.He was a good guy. The cat had won in in our cat and mouse game. He asked me if I knew I was going too fast and I told him I did. He then asked me embarrassing questions concerning my hiding behind the barn on the road. He tried to let me off the hook concerning the fact that I kept trying to keep him from smelling my breath so finally I told him the truth. I am 76″ tall and 220 lbs and had two beers over an hour and a half before my stop and registered well over .08% and the bar tender verified my consumption. We did not go to court because I was only ticketed for speeding 72 in a 65 zone. Those beers were drank over a one hour period. The fact that alcohol and prescription drugs are legal creates a good argument in DUI/DWI, vs. alcohol-related incidents. The D is for Driving, the U is for under and the I is for the influence. Why is alcohol the criminally motivated instigator? I have discovered over the years that alcohol is better than drugs when used in moderation for the majority of problems We allow legal drugs to be used as substitutes for. Mix drugs and alcohol and we have Jekyll and Hyde drivers cruising our streets. There was no problem with my driving capacities in this incident, but if there had been an accident I was speeding. The local area I was stopped is not on our list of speed-trap areas.
Interesting you mention mixtures of drugs:
As a person who has worked in an area that deals with DWI a bit, my guess is that most people don’t know about mixing legal drugs with alcohol and DWI.
Let’s say that you had a cold and you took a Contac. Then you had a beer. Guess what? They’re going to go to the jury and say that because you mixed the two substances, that one beer was like if you had three beers…or whatever. They’re not going to feel sorry for you because you had a cold. They’re not going to feel sorry for you because you only had one beer. If they pull you over for something, and even though you might have been driving poorly because you actually felt really bad from your cold, you’re pretty much as good as dead as far as a DWI goes.
and do you know what else? in some areas, they don’t have to put on expert testimony to explain to the jury what happens when the two drugs mix with one another. they’ll let the jury’s imagination run away with the idea that you are a drug-abusing pillhead.
“AHA! you took a drug about 9 hours before you had a drink! even though all of the literature on this drug says that it flushes out of your system in four hours, we’re going to create the illusion that it’s in your system in vast enough quantities to make you a falling down drunk!”
yeah, so keep that in mind before you admit to the officer if you’ve taken any other medications which might cause your symptoms.
DUI laws are counterproductive. I have(had) a job, but am now unemployed due to a license suspension. I have thousands of dollars in legal fees, alcohol school, fines, impoundment fees, and my insurance will go up 200%-300%. Gee, just what you want, a person without insurance, depressed because they have lost their job, and might have a drinking problem. Think they might drink? Think they might drink and drive, since they have so little to lose at that point? DUI laws that don’t provide help and rehabilitation, and distinguish between a productive member of society who made a mistake and a hard core alcoholic who is a menace on the road, just ask for more trouble. By the way, I quit drinking for good. Any punishment I get won’t help – it just adds to the misery.
DUI laws, and their enforcement, can be broken down (in terms of motivations) in the following parts:
- 10% Promoting safety/preventing accidents
- 20% Appeasing people impacted by actual drunk driving accidents/fatalities
- 70% Revenue generation
One thing that should be done is to totally remove any financial incentive for police to roam the highways at night, tailgating and intimidating drivers to find an excuse to pull them over, and then claim they were “impaired.”
What would be really funny is an accurate stat sheet on the average BAC of all people nailed for “drunk” driving. This number will closely track through history, from the start at .15, to .13, to .10, down to .08, as the laws were changed to make sure people were convicted.
A return to sanity, where there must be evidence that the person is driving unsafely is long overdue.
“I have lost two sons, they were just kids and they rode with drivers that were *very drunk*. We need to really instill in everyones minds, NOT to ride with anyone who has been drinking *anything* or in *any amount*.”
This is the attitude that is so completely misguided. It combines several logical fallacies, appealing to emotion instead of reason, and places everyone into a “completely sober” or “completely drunk” group, creating a false dilemma.
If someone is *really drunk* they probably are not operating the vehicle safely. This does NOT mean that everyone who consumes any amount of alcohol at all cannot operate another vehicle safely. Why not claim that since a person having 25 cups of coffee will be impaired that no one should ever drive an automobile after drinking any amount of caffeine at all. Yeah, that’s logic to a T.
Again, take away the money and this ridiculous pattern of having cops on overtime tailgating and intimidating every driver on the road from midnight to 3am would stop.
I’ll tell you why .10 is bunk.
Does anyone know what has been going on over the last decade? Cell phones! Conventional wisdom, research, or whatever voodoo magic that people conjure up say that talking on the cell phone is like having a BAC of .10. A BAC of .10 is HIGHER than the .08 limit.
Anyway, you have flooded the streets with people who talk on their cell phones (which is like flooding our streets with a bunch of people with a .10 BAC), but guess what? Although there may be SOME accidents, it’s not like our streets have been clogged with accidents and deaths from their use….and I will say that, from my own experience, I’ve visibly seen a bunch of people on their cell phones. Nearly every day of the week, I see somebody yapping. There are probably more of these losers out there than there are drunk drivers. For one thing, people talk on their cell phones 24 hours a day while DWI is mostly confined to evenings or late at night.
Even so, how many times do you hear on the news, “this weekend, there was another tragic death from cell phone use”?
Yet, while accidents do happen from cell phone use, there aren’t memorials to people who needlessly died because somebody had to get on the phone and talk about last night’s episode of Gilmore Girls and couldn’t wait 15 minutes before they got home to call that person.
Basically, it says to me that lower BAC arrests are like snipe hunts. Chances are, you MAY save some lives, but you will save lives any time you go out and arrest a million sober people and keep them from driving anywhere.
Some new statistics are out regarding drinking and driving, but from a source I’ve not seen elsewhere. This research is looking at what people are searching for in Google and other search engines about topics like “drinking and driving”, “drunk driving”, “DUI”, etc. This information is informative and challenged a few of my assumptions about how drinking and driving affects our culture.
Information here: http://www.clearhavencenter.com/addictions-research/drinking-and-driving/
Regarding the link posted by Curtis. I am suspicious of any research conducted by a organization that profits from selling addiction recovery programs.
Quoted directly from their website. “Clear Haven Center, a prominent drug and alcohol rehabilitation center just outside Montreal, Quebec, generously sponsors search frequency research”
I no more believe the “research” from them as I believe the commericals for AXE make me irrestible to all women. But I must say I am quite handsome. =)
A reasonable person assumes some direct relation between alcohol and fatality when presented with a report on alcohol related fatalities. The mere presence of alcohol tells one nothing about the cause of an accident or who was at fault. The fact that that the NHTSA’s annual FARS report includes pedestrians and bicyclists who may or may not have been drunk makes this report useless for discerning how many people are killed by drunk drivers. In defense of the NHTSA, I don’t believe that they have ever claimed the FARS database to be a useful tool to that end. The question is, why do groups like MADD use it as such? Presenting the FARS data as drunk driver caused fatalities, is a clearly deceptive tactic that makes the problem appear to be much larger than it really is. Why does a group like MADD, that collects tens of millions in tax free dollars per year, feel the need to exaggerate the drunk driving problem? I think the question answers itself. It should be noted that today’s corporate MADD is not the same grass roots organization that Candy Lightner founded years ago. The original MADD was born of necessity and this nation benefited greatly from its tireless efforts. Now, Candy Lightner has left the organization stating that MADD has lost sight of its original goals. She has been replaced by executives with six figure salaries and generous pension plans who spend their time marketing the MADD name to corporations. This is an example from MADD’s marketing department:
["What MADD Can Do For You. Aligning with MADD gives your company added credibility and increased power by:
Increasing store traffic and sales volume
Connecting with customers on emotional and logical levels to provide incremental value to the consumer and sales lift to your company
Increasing partner distribution channels
Increasing shelf space and point-of-sale display space with key retailers
Winning national marketing and media awards
Increasing consumer and media awareness during key time periods
Giving national promotions "local legs" through MADD's network of chapters
Mentioning your company during interviews in national media
Attracting national and regional media attention during sponsor-driven media events
Delivering targeted media campaigns with other MADD partners
Call MADD's marketing department at 469-420-4518 to discuss how MADD can help your company meet its marketing and public relations goals."]
The drunk driving problem is still very real, but {”MADD has become big bucks, and that’s it.” It’s a big corporation.” Sandy Kaufman,
former MADD chapter President.}
I am have been trying to collect enough information to write a research paper. It would be nice if some of you more opinionated bloggers that actually made legitimate arguements put down some of your credentials, and what makes you even semi-credible. Also, if you feel strongly about what you’ve posted, you should probably shouldn’t use a made up name. Drunk driving is serious, the only way it is going to go away is to put mandatory breath test in vehicles, that won’t let your vehicle start if you are impaired. Know way would auto insurance companies allow this to happen, they would send lobbyist straight to capital hill becuase they make a killing of jacking up insurance for those who were convictted of DUI/DWI, same with your local law enforcement and city hall.
Blake for one thing you need to do a lot of things to improve your writing before thinking about what you need to write about.
Second dunken drivers cost insurance companies a lot and do not forget that fact. You ask any insurance company and they would tell you they would prefer to have no one drink or speed or drive recklessly and their claims would drop in half or more and they would make a lot more money that way and also be able to drop rates.
AMEN to the OBVIOUS and clear voices of reason, intelligence and sanity on this panel: snooty writer, Wulfy and James Young!!!
The only people that would be opposed to any simple, rational and common-sense approach to reducing the occurrance of impaired driving on our roads; versus the misguided, corrupt and draconian system we have currently are those that stand to make direct -profit- from the current system, either financially, politically, professionally or all three; OR those simple-minded IDIOTS that
*only* know how to relate to the persuasive hyperbole of child-level, unfiltered, unevolved emotionality and demagoguery being constantly sourced from the “drunk-driving” propaganda machine. In short, only those that stand to gain from the current system, or those that lack the simple, basic, mental
capacity to actually see past the cheap and ever-present emotional appeals of the interest-vested organizations into the actual realm of sound science, sound *thinking* and sound reason; would be opposed to a common-sense, constitutional-rights-respecting reform of the current DUI/DWI system.
So Elaina you are saying what we need to do is wait until someone causes an accident and then crack down on them. The current system is working. The number of accidents because of DUI is dropping in the states that are cracking down and doing something about it. The days of allowing anyone to go drink as much as they like and drive home are coming to an end.
And raising the drinking age to 21 eliminated teenage drinking – would you agree Randy?
Jeff it sure did. There is no where near the drinking of kids under age 21 that there used to be 30 years ago. There are far fewer under 21 driving drunk and getting in accidents. You and others here have been missing that point. You say that it is the increased speeds that have not caused more accidents but in reality it is the decrease of people driving drunk. There will always be some that do. That is because people like you encourage others to disobey all laws. In fact I would not be surprised if you were not the one buying the alcohol for them.
In Canada you can drink at 19. Canada does not have a drunk driving problem.
Jeff you are an idiot.
http://www.canadadui.ca/canada-drunk-driving.html
Canada Drunk Driving
Similar to other countries, Canada has a set of rules and regulations which everyone should follow while he or she is on the road. The most stern of these laws deal with drunk driving. This refers to the act of maneuvering a car while a person is intoxicated with drugs or alcohol or a combination of these chemicals. The laws regarding drunk driving in Canada have been implemented and imposed strictly in all of its provinces as this offense has become the number one cause of deaths among motorists, passengers, and pedestrians.
In general, Canada drunk driving laws state that when a person has been caught drunk driving through one of the common traffic violations, his license can be suspended at once. The period of time for the suspension may vary depending on whether the driver is a first-time or a repeat offender. Furthermore, he will be fined a certain amount, his car can be confiscated, and he may be required to attend a drunk driving school. The degree of such penalties also depends on the frequency of his offense. In addition, certain courts in Canada may allow a first-time offender to use a specific ignition interlock device. This device lets him start and drive his car only if it finds no trace of alcohol in his breath. However, if a motorist commits a DUI offense for the second, third, or fourth time, his punishment normally includes imprisonment aside from the above-mentioned penalties.
Moving on, the Canada drunk driving laws also state that everyone who is accused of the said felony has the right to obtain the legal assistance of a lawyer. This ensures that those who are caught drunk driving will have a fair trial.
Teenagers can still legally drink in Canada at age 19.
Pretty good Jeff. You may have one fact right out of hundreds of statements. I have not checked it though so that may also be wrong.
I did find this statement online:
The highest rates of impaired driving in Canada are among younger drivers. In 2002, drivers aged 19 to 24 represented 56 per cent of reported incidents; a stunning 44 percent of fatally injured drivers aged 20-25 had been drinking. The drunk driving problem among young adults is far from solved.
It sounds to me like Canada needs to do something about young age drinking and driving. Maybe they need to do some checks like are done in the US and do some prevention rather than wait and look at the poor statistics.
Why don’t you e-mail the Canadian prime minister and give him your thoughts on this subject?
Jeff we have enough of a problem to take care of here. You are so into Canada, you go fix it. You live closer than I do.
Can I have a drink or 2 while I’m there? You can also buy Cuban cigars in Canada.