Fewer Drunk Drivers on U.S. Roads; Concern Rises Over Drugged Drivers

July 13, 2009

  • July 13, 2009 at 1:35 am
    LOL says:
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    Please check your facts Mr Lahood. Alcohol does not kill 13,000 people, drivers drinking and then crashing kill.

    Rather than focus on fatalities, you should focus on the drivers. Here’s what you will find if you ever decided to look at the FARS database in a little more detail.

    In all of 2008, there were only 2,440 drivers with a BAC >=.08 that were involved in a crash which resulted in a fatality. Of the 50,186 total drivers in 2008 involved in crashes, only 4% were legally drunk per FARS.

    And you can not impute that all 4% were the 100% cause of the crash.

    Counting fatalities is a slick way for MADD and other neo-prohibitionist lobbying organizations to make a problem seem bigger than it appears.

    The US is arresting 1.6m people per year because 2,440 were involved in an crash were there was a fatality. An 18 billion dollar a year economy.

    Mr Lahood is now trying to grow that economy by going after people on high blood pressure medicine. Welcome to the next road tax.

  • July 13, 2009 at 2:07 am
    Joey says:
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    Wow! That was fast! Didn’t take long for someone to start spewing their anti-MADD rhetoric, quoting statistics and figures from some obscure website or what not. ONE person dying because of a drunk driver is too much. But, everyone is entitled to an opinion.

  • July 13, 2009 at 2:28 am
    Useless Feel Good Laws says:
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    Your key phrase though is “because of.” I do not disagree with you. However when you start to try to stretch the truth and correlations to skew the data to your favor, then there is a problem. Sometimes the accident would have happened ANYWAY, sober or drunk. Therefore the “because of” does not apply, BUT because their was alcohol involved, it is an automatic reason for fault. The fact that the feds have bribed the states to lower BAC standards by refusing to give them highway money is absurd and violates our constitutional standards.

    There has to be a point between common sense and walking around in a bubble where nobody gets hurt. Its plain called responsibility. Feel good laws do not promote responsibility.

  • July 13, 2009 at 2:41 am
    Skewed Title says:
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    If you read the headline, it leads you to believe there are less drunks on the road, and more druggies.
    When you actually read the referenced survey, a much different picture is painted.
    Yes there are less drunks on the road. However, this is the first time they surveyed both legal and illicit drug use. The survey has disclaimers all over it stating different drugs have different characteristics, there is no coorelation between the presence of a drug in the systems and impairment, some drugs impair immediately but the impairment goes away after taking the drug for some time, so on and so forth. About the only conclusion that caem out of the drug side of the survey was that the drug use should be looked at sometime in the future.

  • July 13, 2009 at 2:42 am
    Sherinsure says:
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    I have seen accidents where the drivers
    only had one beer and they were declared
    DUI. I have seen an accident where the
    driver was too drunk to walk but because
    he was related to the local cops, he was
    never even tested.
    Statistics are never 100% accurate because
    of the human factor.
    Alcohol does kill other than in auto
    accidents. How many die of Alcohol Sicknesses each year? How many die because
    of alcoholics shooting or beating someone
    to death? Or how many children of alcoholics are malnurished because mommy
    or daddy has spent all their money on
    alcohol?
    Tobacco has seen alot of fire. But as far
    as I know not one person has ever caused
    an auto accident and killed someone because tobacco in their blood. But everyone is quit to say it kills. State
    and Federal governments are raising taxes
    on cigarettes every 6 months or so in the
    name of recuperating money spent in their
    medicaid and medicare programs on smoking
    related sickness. How many times are deaths attributed to smoking even if tobacco is not the reason for the death, just because the person who died once
    smoked?
    And I suppose none of you ever heard of
    people abusing prescription drugs? And
    I very much doubt anyone will get into
    trouble for taking blood pressure meds.

  • July 13, 2009 at 3:20 am
    matt says:
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    Here in TX it is not the 0.08 BAC folks who cause most of the bad wrecks.

    The problem is the people who get so wasted, all the time, and these folks don’t think twice about driving. They are the ones who blow BAC’s in the 0.30’s, they never have insurance, a lot of the time they don’t have drivers licenses either. They just don’t give two flips about anything except their liquor.

    My friend got crushed by one of ’em– T-boned on the highway, and I don’t even know how that’s possible. The guy jumped out, threw all his Tecate beer cans over the overpass bridge, and then hopped in a friends car and was never seen again.

  • July 13, 2009 at 3:22 am
    Stat Guy says:
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    I like your approach; its about time someone really questioned the headlines. I agree that this is driven by MADD and its not about drunk driving but rather prohibition. Those chicken littles cause a lot of trouble and cost people their livlihoods. One thing that always bothered me is where does all that MONEY go? Taxes like these are always flowing and governments budget anticipated fine amounts! Talk about hoping and planning and expecting only the “best” numbes. It would be better if state governments didn’t include fines and costs in their expected projections so they would actually have surpluses…but who are we kidding, governments spend more and always look for new sources of revenue other than taxes. Too bad that these statistics were skewed; we could make some progress if we identified the real problems but they don’t make headlines or copy…

  • July 13, 2009 at 4:28 am
    Dizzy says:
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    Can make you feel dizzy! I was put on one for the first time by my former doc; I started feeling really lightheaded when I got out of the car outside work; went in told my boss I felt lousy from the new med. He told me to go home. I felt okay sitting down, just standing up I felt so weak. Do not attempt to drive if you are taking blood pressure meds for the first time.

  • July 14, 2009 at 7:26 am
    LOL says:
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    FARS is not some obscure website buddy. FARS is the source of the actual data compiled by the NHTSA (MADD run by the way) and regurgitated through this and other media outlets.

    The problem, the media outlets always gets hung up on fatality counts and MADD loves every minute of it using these inflated statistics to pass ever more harsher and draconian punishments for those “drivers” (yes, only 2,440 in all of 2008) that consume alcohol.

    It’s time to get out of your bubble. MADD is not a victim advocate organization. They are lying. They are hiding behind their tear jerking stories. Basically, professional victims getting handouts from the government via grants to push their message of prohibition.

    Some people see it. Some don’t.

    Here’s the link to the FARS database. I doubt you have the time or smarts to figure out how to mine the data but I figured I would show you where the obscurity comes from my friend.

    ftp://ftp.nhtsa.dot.gov/FARS/

  • July 14, 2009 at 8:33 am
    Carl says:
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    Why is it that nobody will address the “root cause” of problems like this? Namely, human stupidity. Setting aside legitimate prescription drugs which will be with us forever, how do we prevent drug users or alcoholics from getting behind the wheel? Revoking a license or making them pay a monetary fine obviously doesn’t work. Neither does sending them to “class” for a few weeks. If the courts and judicial system were serious about impacting the problem (which they aren’t), they’d try something else…..perhaps a bit more draconian since these cretins don’t seem to respond to civil efforts. I’d like to see them impound ANY vehicle the violator is caught driving. This gets them off the road and grabs the attention of anyone who might lend them a car. 6 months for the first offense, a year for the second, and impound and sell the vehicle for the third DUI. We have nothing to lose in trying this approach. There was a newsclip a few weeks ago about some clown who just received his 27th DUI and has had his license revoked years ago. If they can’t stop themselves before they kill someone, maybe society should.



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