your "1/75th" is patently incorrect.
No, it's not. It's not exact, it's ballpark, but it's in the ballpark.
your "1/75th" is patently incorrect.
That is a different stat, signing. Craig is saying that for every person caught driving drunk, 74 others are not caught. Personally, I would have thought even more get away with it.
It may be a different stat, but Craig has provided nothing (unless I missed it) to back up that number.
Thank youGuideline #6
Use links to support your argument, but not to make your argument. This is especially true of media -- people are not going to sit through a long video without first being given a good idea why they should (and usually not even then).
If the penalty for drunk driving was being taken out of your car and shot in the head, and at every stop-light there was a cop doing breathalyzers of folks stopped: Then no one would drive drunk.
That's neither correct, nor moral, nor practical. It goes to not understanding the problems many who drive drunk have. As I said before, they're already risking their life. Top that.
That point ----------> whooshHonestly, this doesn't seem that complicated.
I doubt that. It is more a matter of individual performance and luck. My father, for example, could function at a very high level with a very high BAC. Nothing to be proud of, just the culmination of a lifetime of excessive drinking.
He got two DUI convictions because other drunks hit HIM.
On the other hand (to switch the argument a little bit) - if drivers are only caught 1 in 75 times, or 1 in 500 times (which I don't believe), that means that nearly 74 in 75 of those drivers get home without causing an accident.
Things that make you say "hmmmm." Perhaps the BAC is set too low?
On the other hand (to switch the argument a little bit) - if drivers are only caught 1 in 75 times, or 1 in 500 times (which I don't believe), that means that nearly 74 in 75 of those drivers get home without causing an accident.
The same thing really applies to any of these things that increase the chances of an accident a little such as speeding and dangerous lane changes - 'no big deal'. But with the tens of millions of cars on the road, the odds add up and you get into the thousands of people killed - with millions of accidents a year.
No, mine is not. See my sig, by the way, for my position on ideology.
This is my argument. Driving while intoxicated raises the odds of an accident, just like any number of other bad driving habits such as talking on a cell phone or eating while driving. Why do we pick out drunk driving for special treatment while we let all these other sometimes more dangerous driving conditions go unaddressed?
What we need is not some gizmo to address this one issue, what we need is a comprehensive plan to make people understand that driving is a dangerous endeavor that needs to be taken seriously, along with a plan to weed out those that are unable or unwilling to be responsible drivers.
You can't have perfect consistency, and it's wrong to oppose a good policy on the grounds that not every issue is handled in some uptopian but impractical way.
Your suggestion for 'some public education' as a REPLACEMENT for these devices is effectively saying 'do nothing, you choose the thousands of lives lost'.
I'm all for the education being added - but the fact is it's not going to have anywhere near the impact the devices would, in my opinion. The devices are exactly what we need.
A recent study by Car and Driver suggests texting while driving is even more of an impairment than drinking and driving. The Study took place on an airport runway and measured the reaction times of two males ages 22 and 37 while texting vs. while intoxicated at the 0.08 legal limit.
The test subjects were monitored driving at both 35 mph and 70 mph- undistracted, reading a text, sending a text and while intoxicated. A light mounted on the windshield served as a simulated break light- which was controlled by a passanger in the car. The test subjects were measured by both reaction time from when the light was activated and the extra distance they traveled.
The results were not encouraging. While driving under the influence the drivers took an extra 4 feet to stop at 35 mph and an extra 7.5 feet at 70 mph. This increased substantially when texting to 25.5 feet at 35 mph and 23.5 feet at 70 mph.
Considering how society views texting vs drinking these results are a little disconcerting. Recent studies by the National Safety Council suggest that 28% of accidents are caused by drivers texting behind the wheel yet a large portion of the population considers texting safer and less harmful than driving intoxicated.
I do not condone drunk driving- it has caused injury to far too many people, but I do think this puts text messaging and driving into perspective. The reason the number of distracted driving incidents is so much higher than drunk driving is simple -it is socially acceptable to drive distracted while drunk driving is frowned upon. Only when the public becomes aware of the consequences of driving distracted will these statistics alter.
What I am saying is that drunk driving is a symptom to a much larger problem, that we do not take the dangers of driving seriously.
I do not dispute that drunk driving is dangerous, or even more dangerous them most other driving habits. But treating a symptom is not the answer.
I believe that a well tailored education program backed by enforceable rules, like the ones I outlined in my previous post about enforcement being focused on outcome instead of trying to monitor behavior, will be the ONLY thing to have any appreciable effect.
Although really, just needs to focus on getting to the point where we can give up control of cars to automated vehicles, I think at this point we can do that almost as fast as getting breathalyzers in a significant number of cars. It feels like we are discussing what type of hitching post is best for our horses while Henry Ford pumps out Model Ts.
