It’s a good thing that it’s only used by responsible adults, then.
The U.S. Government in 1919: More totalitarian than Stalin ever was.
What is the nature of your employment within the alcohol industry?
Do you limit your activities to only those things that are safe for children to do?
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drinking is great! drinking is fine! driving drunk is even better!
(full disclosure: my employer does the lab tests for MPAs)
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You’re right. It’s not the DUI, it’s the injuries sustained in the resulting automobile collision. Also, guns don’t kill people, it’s the damn bullets.
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The link is on a state-by-state basis - it doesn’t give any numbers for the country as a whole.
Here’s the raw national data:
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/People/PeopleDrivers.aspx
The article you listed says that "Failure to keep in Proper Lane " causes the most driving fatalities in the most states - but that’s #3 on the overall list, after speeding and driving drunk.
(Oh, and, can you please just make your damned point? Earlier with the “Oh, drunk driving’s not the leading cause of traffic fatalities, but I’m not going to tell you what is,” and now with “‘A simple mistake causes the most driving fatalities across the country’…and it is NOT DUI, but I’m not going to tell you what it is!” It’s really annoying. Make your point, and then let your references speak to the point, but you should be making your point, not letting someone else make your point for you.)
“But wait,” I hear you saying. “Speeding is #1, and alcohol is #2!” Well, yes and no.
If you look at the reports of how many people died from speeding and alcohol, respectively:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812101.pdf
10,076 died from accidents involving alcohol.
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812162.pdf
9,613 died from accidents involving speeding.
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No, but I was asking you to tell me what was wrong with my characterization of alcohol as “a dangerous drug that probably wouldn’t be approved if it had to go through a formal FDA process like any other drug has to.”
You reply to that was that it wasn’t dangerous, when used by responsible adults.
That would, indeed, be a flaw with my description of alcohol, if and only if it is only used by responsible adults.
Since it is often used irresponsibly, [with various effects to the human body] (Long-term effects of alcohol - Wikipedia), as well as a few secondary consequences, I ask again, what is wrong with my characterization of alcohol?
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Yes, alcohol can be used in a dangerous manner.
But part of living in a non-totalitarian society is learning the difference between “things that can possibly cause danger” and “things that should be prohibited by law”.
The United States is already way, way way too far down the road to becoming a Nerf Nation.
And I never said that I thought that alcohol should be banned. I said that it was too bad that we can’t get rid of it, but I know how pointless attempting to ban it would be — like other drug bans, it would cause more harm than it prevents.
What I did say is:
Rather than debating me on whether a Zero-BAC rule for driving would be useful, you took my characterization of alcohol and said:
And, when pressed, now you can’t point out a single thing wrong with the specific sentence quoted.
You’re not being as frustrating as @onemadscientist with his “Ask me about these things that are more dangerous than driving drunk!” but, it is the same problem, to a lesser extent: if you’re going to make an argument, make it. Point out what is wrong with what I say.
If you’re going to argue, point out where I’m wrong; I could, quite easily, be wrong about the Zero-BAC thing. Show me how that’s a bad idea. Convince me.
Just don’t snark at a sentence of mine that you’ve quoted if you can’t back up the snark with an actual argument.
No, because you are trying to prove your vague point and satisfy your weirdly personal axe-grinding with absurd leaps of logic to conflate several unrelated elements.
You still haven’t explained how drinking and driving is not 100% preventable. When is drinking and driving unpreventable?
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From the chart you just cited:
In a majority of states, failure to stay in your lane kills the most people. The second-most-common behavior was failing to yield the right-of-way, the leading cause in seven states.
Hint: “failure to stay in proper lane/failing to yield right-of-way” and “driving drunk” are NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. One might reasonably infer there is in fact a causal relationship between those behaviors (and no, it’s not “failing to stay in the proper lane will increase your blood alcohol level”).
Away with you.
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Most mad scientists are really just mad engineers.
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It’s possible that reducing the legal BAC to 0.0000 would save a few hundred lives a year. I don’t disagree.
But the serious drunks out there who are putting away a pint of bourbon or three six packs and then getting behind the wheel will keep killing people, because they don’t give a damn about the law.
What a zero BAC law would also do would permit more and more police and legal system harassment, more fines and asset confiscations, directed against millions of men and women who are innocent under current law and who pose no danger on the road. And I do not agree that the lives saved would be worth it.
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No matter how you slice and dice it the penalty for DUI doesn’t make sense when you look at the penalty for any other moving violation. So let’s break it down.
Penalty
Speeding - first two times = 2 tickets
Distracted Driving - first two times = 2 tickets - if at all
DUI - first time = Diver safety classes, fine that is 3 times the two above, go to jail, loose your license, probation, lawer fees, etc.
Prevention
Speeding = preventable
Distracted Driving = preventable
DUI = preventable
Deaths
Speeding - Kills a lot
Distracted Driving - Kills a lot
DUI - Kills a lot (and not disproportionately to the other two - see links above for the numbers)
A DUI is not that different from the other causes of traffic fatalities except for the penalty. Lots of money spent, and lots of media attention disproportionately spent on DUI vs other causes, when these other causes collectively kill more people. Before you jump on me for saying collectively know that I am including lane changes, reaching for a french fry, putting on make up, texting, etc into distracted driving because there are a lot of things that constitute distracted driving.
The public has been fooled into thinking that DUI is worse than any of the other top killers . There is a disproportionate amount of money spent on commercials, road signs, billboards, special events, police roadblocks, etc, and everyone knows the penalty is extremly different, yet when compared to the other leading causes it not as disproportionate as the public has been led to believe.
Just for fun, let’s say you put the same amount of resources, or divide the resouces (commercials, road signs, billboards, special events, etc) into just distracted driving, and speding, as well as make the penalty the same. If this were done you would be focusing on a much larger cause of traffic fatalities, and save more lives then those lost due to DUI. Why would you not want to save more lives?
It may seem ridiculous to receive the same penalty for speeding, or crossing the line as you do for a DUI. If so then I contend it is just as ridiculous for the penalty for a DUI to be so disproportionate as it is today.
I never said in any of my comments that DUI is OK, or a good thing.
And definitely dangerous to know.
Not a derail:
I don’t have a problem with defining the BAC you can legally drive with. From where I am at, .8% is the legal limit, and I can tell you .07% makes me unfit. I agree that a $10k fine for .09% is egregious, but just take a cab. I have a BACtrack, and from Listerine, vino, and nyquil I’ve had a .01% for most of my life. I know because I measure 
But DUI egregiousness is on my long tail of things to worry about. A cab is always cheaper.
Eta
Just realized I missed a leading zero. Which made me both laugh and feel horrified at the same time.
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You could make drinking and driving 100% preventable by:
a) eliminating 100% of drinking, or by
b) eliminating 100% of driving.
Both are theoretically possible, I suppose.
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The reason for DUI penalties, is it not, is that the perpetrators deliberately chose to pilot a dangerous machine whilst chemically impaired. Mens rea, innit? It’s piss-easy to go too fast by mistake. Hell, I went from a crappy Renault Megane I got for free to a Lexus is200, and on the way home from purchasing it I noticed I was doing 120 on the motorway because it just didn’t make awful screeching noises and threaten to explode at 60+mph (and then slowed the fuck down. Fortunately this was after 10pm on the M6 wayyyy up north, so it was empty. I slowed the fuck down immediately, for the record). Shit, it’s a heavy car, it gains a fair old speed boost going downhill if’n you don’t downshift. If I drove it to the pub, had 5 or 6 pints then drove it home, I’d be deliberately putting other people’s lives at risk if I got in it and drove it home. I’m completely fine with heavier sentences for that than for being surprised by gravity or Toyota’s build quality.
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FTFY
DUI - Kills a lot (and not disproportionately to the other two - see links above for the numbers)
YES IT FUCKING DOES. You just can’t seem to parse the data from your own linked stories, much less the detailed NHTSA studies I linked to above.
It’s not hard to understand why if you pause long enough to think about it. A person who texts while driving dangerously diminishes their ability to drive a car for the length of time it takes to send or receive a text. If they make a mistake there’s a chance they can recover quickly enough to avoid a deadly accident. A person who drives drunk dangerously diminishes their ability to drive a car until they sober up, and if they make a mistake their recovery time is much slower. A drunk person is also more likely to make more serious mistakes, like driving on the wrong side of the highway.
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