Traditionally, drinking to excess is valued in Mexican and Latin culture, where it is seen an expression of machismo. Moreover, MADD reports that Hispanics believe it takes 6-8 drinks to affect driving, while Americans think it takes 2-4 drinks.
In 2001, according to MADD, 44.1 percent of California’s drunk driving arrests in 2001 were of Hispanics, although Hispanics made up only 31.3 percent of the state’s population.
The general incidence of drunk driving has worsened in California—parallel with the skyrocketing Latino population. Accidents involving drunk drivers increased overall nearly 5 percent in the state in 2000, with an uptick in Los Angeles County of 7.6 percent in that year. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for Hispanics ages 1-44.
Experts on the front lines agree that extreme drunkenness is not uncommon in DUI arrests of Latinos. Austin police officer Robert Smith, who has worked the late-night drunk patrol for over three years, noted higher rates of blood alcohol: “One thing I have noticed is that the Hispanics I arrest for DWI, 90 percent of the time, are more drunk than the white and black people I arrest.”
Assistant Dean at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas Raul Caetano put it this way, “The profile of a drunk driver in California is a young Hispanic male, and I bet you have a similar situation all over the Southwest.” He referred to a national survey, saying, “The traditional pattern of drinking in Mexico is one of infrequent drinking of high amounts.” [A troubling trend: Hispanics and DWI Latinos account for nearly half of 2002 Austin arrests By Claire Osborn and Andy Alford Austin American-Statesman Sunday, July 20, 2003]
Statistics from Austin support the observations of these men: Of 3,007 drunken driving arrests in 2002, 43 percent involved Hispanic men, even though they comprised only about 11 percent of the city’s driving population. And the story is similar elsewhere: North Carolina drunk driving arrests of Hispanics in 2000 amounted to 12.3 percent of the total 87,781 DUI arrests, while Latinos were 4.7 percent of the population according to the Census.
http://www.vdare.com/walker/dui.htm
Thank you for that information. I was thinking it was more basic in that if they don’t follow the rules when it comes to a big issue like coming into a country illegally, what makes one think they’ll follow the rules with anything else?