People who drink a lot of alcohol develop tolerance–a tolerance that unfortunately does not mitigate the cognitive impairments that make DUI’s so dangerous. Or so I’ve heard. I don’t drive, so it makes little difference to me.
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Right there with ya. And that’s why when a scooch of doubt, I measure. Hell, I think I have a spreadsheet somewhere. What I can instantly recall is a 22oz 6.5% beer will raise my BAC to .07% in 35 minutes. And it takes two hours to reduce to .01%.
Oh Reeeeeaaalllyyy? After reading all this maybe you will see that we should be focusing resources elsewhere to save a larger percentage of lives, and stop all the inflated hype over DUI. You would rather save more lives right?
The number one cause of car accidents is not a criminal that drove drunk, sped or ran a red light. Distracted drivers are the top cause of car accidents in the U.S. today.
Source: “San Diego car accident Lawyers - The 25 Top Causes of Car Accidents in the US | Pines Salomon Personal Injury Lawyers”
Distracted driving continues to be the number one leading cause of car accidents in America
Source: “Drivers.com: Top 3 Causes of Car Accidents in America”
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.
Source: “The Cause of the Most Fatal Car Crashes - Business Insider”
. In 2013 driving too fast played a role in 20 percent of fatal crashes, making it the most prevalent factor in fatal crashes,
Source: “404 - Page not found | III”
In fact, it’s estimated thatroughly 25% of motor vehicle accident fatalities are a result of distracted driving.
Source: “Top 10 Causes of Distracted Driving—and What They All Have in Common – SafeStart”
Texting while driving is now the leading cause of death among teenagers – surpassing drinking and driving, according to a study by Cohen Children’s Medical Center.
Source: “http://safety.trw.com/texting-while-driving-now-leading-cause-of-us-teen-deaths/0710/”
According to the research, speeding is largely the most common cause of automobile accidents.
Source: “Helpful Houston Personal Injury Information | Baumgartner Law Firm”
Speed related crashes continue to be a leading cause of all traffic fatalities in Arizona.
“https://www.azgohs.gov/highway-safety-programs/default.asp?ID=17”
Distracted driving is the leading cause of road deaths
Source: “Distracted driving is the leading cause of road deaths | CBC News”
On the other hand, speeding is a factor I one-third of all highway deaths.
Source: “Do We Tolerate Too Many Traffic Deaths? - The New York Times”
Distractions behind the wheel a leading cause in teen driving deaths
Source: “http://wric.com/2015/03/25/distractions-behind-the-wheel-a-leading-cause-in-teen-driving-deaths/”
Mark Edwards, Director of Traffic Safety at the American Automobile Association stated, “The research tells us that somewhere between 25-50 percent of all motor vehicle crashes in this country really have driver distraction as their root cause.”
“The 6 Most Common Causes of Automobile Crashes”
The five leading causes of motor vehicle crashes are:
· Driving at unsafe speeds (under the limit)
· Failure to yield the right-of-way
· Driving under the influence of alcohol
· Disregarding “Stop” and “Go” signals
· Following too closely
Source: “http://www.webtrafficschool.com/wts/content/Texas/The_Traffic_Safety_Problems.html”
You need to stop equating accidents and fatalities.
Why are you so concerned that drunk driving is taken too seriously? What is the cause of the bee in your bonnet about it?
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He’s pissed he got caught.
He also still hasn’t explained how drinking and driving is not 100% preventable.
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Because there is way too much media hype regarding DUI, and next to none on the other two causes that make up a larger portion of fatalities. It’s no secret MADD has lobbiests pushing the issue, and that causes the penalty to be skewed as well. Folks have been led to believe that the other causes that make up a larger portion of traffic fatalities is acceptable since there is only a small deterrent (ticket), and a lack of media coverage like DUI has. . Our society is focused on saving a smaller percentage of lives due to traffic fatalities because they see, and hear all the hype about DUI, and next to nothing on the other leading causes. I am guessing all the money MADD funnels into politics also plays a role. There is no other organization doing the same for the other causes. Why are we not putting the same amount of resources on the other causes? This would result in a larger drop in traffic fatalities.
If I am speeding (regardless of why) and I kill someone I am more likely to get manslaughter. Under the same circumstances, but having a BAC at the legal limit, I am more likely to be charged with murder because DUI is just so so much worse…but it’s not. You are to be in control of your vehicle at all times. That means even if the car is new, and you don’t realize how fast you are going, or you were just changing the station. It only takes a second to screw up, and kill someone.
You could argue that if you kill someone because you were not paying attention its not as bad of a reason as DUI if you kill someone, but under both circumstances it was your responsibility to maintain control of your vehicle. If I am distracted by changing the station on my radio, and don’t kill someone its no different then me driving after drinking and arriving home without killing someone.
It just makes more sense to me to save the most lives, and not be subjected to such a disproportionate penalty that doesn’t make sense.
Yes, you did:
[quote=“onemadscientist, post:58, topic:77956”]
That is simply not true.[/quote]
No I said it wasn’t the biggest risk factor
You also said drunk driving isn’t 100% preventable.
You can deny it all you want, but that’s what you said.
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I would like to thank Boing Boing for the bandwidth to allow this debate to linger on.
I think I have said all that needs to be said from my end. I hope nobody got offended, and hope that regardless of which side of the isle you are on this discussion has been enlightening.
This is complete and utter bullshit. That’s like saying, “it’s ok I killed your family, they were bound to die one day anyway.”
Distracted driving is bad. Drunk driving is bad. The difference is that the risk of making a terrible mistake in the half of a second it takes to mess with your audio controls is much different than the risk of driving while your judgment is impaired for the entire time you’re driving.
It’s hard to get offended at such utter nonsense.
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After all this back-and-forth the only explanation I can think of is that @onemadscientist is upset that society has labeled him/her a monster for their past drinking and driving (which hopefully ended with the aforementioned DUI 25 years ago).
“What I did is no worse than those teens I see checking their text messages!” could just be a coping mechanism.
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Ah, so that snark about my brain size was just a spirited exchange of ideas rather than a childish insult. Good one!
There aren’t “two sides of the aisle” in this discussion. There’s just you and everybody else who is trying to explain just how wrong you are.
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You really need to work on your sourcing before trying to be snarky. Let’s see…
- Four of your links are discussing crashes, not fatalities
- Two of your links only discuss teen deaths, not overall deaths
- One link only discusses a single state, while another only discusses a portion of states
- One link discusses Canada
That leaves three links that are actually on-point to the discussion, causes of national fatalities in the U.S…
On the first of those links, it’s clear you didn’t read any farther than what seemed to agree with your own argument. You quoted as saying “In 2013 driving too fast played a role in 20 percent of fatal crashes, making it the most prevalent factor in fatal crashes”, but the article also actually lists solid 2014 numbers:
Speeding: 9,262 lives lost
Drunk Driving: 9,967 lives lost
You do the math.
Also, alcohol was a factor in almost half of that “20 percent” speeding number: “In 2013, about 42 percent of speeding drivers in fatal crashes had blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.08 or higher”
The article you quoted as “it’s estimated that roughly 25% of motor vehicle accident fatalities are a result of distracted driving.” Is sourcing a 2007 study (I even had to look it up through archive.org, since the links are no longer active) that says “Approximately one quarter of vehicle crashes” (Nothing about fatalities) “in the United States are estimated to result from the driver being inattentive”
And the final one is just a list of short blurbs from people with zero sourcing, so it really isn’t worth the time to look into it.
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