Drunken driving on the rise

Sacramento Bee ^ | 12/06/03 | Editorial

[Holly_P]

It will bring no comfort to the friends and family of Sharmelia Jeffries, but the tragic death of the 17-year-old Christian Brothers High School student at the hands of a repeat drunken driver is part of a disturbing national trend. After declining sharply in the in the early and mid-1990s, drunken-driving deaths have climbed for the third year in a row. Alcohol-related collisions, which accounted for 38 percent of traffic fatalities in 1999, the lowest percentage on record, have grown every year since then and made up almost 42 percent of traffic fatalities nationally last year.

[Batrachian]

"After declining sharply in the in the early and mid-1990s, drunken-driving deaths have climbed for the third year in a row."

Hmmm... George Bush has been president for 3 years now. And homelessness has been on the rise for 3 years also. This is terrible.

I see politics in every story.

[mfulstone]

There are alcohol (ETOH) sniffing devices that can smell the ETOH on your breath as you drive by. People with any DUI record should be required to have such a device tied into the ignition switch on their cars. If they have been drinking, the car won't run.

And before anyone calls the ACLU on me, let me state that I have been convicted of DUI twice and still think it's a good idea.

[TheCrusader]

More b.s. "statistics". The fact is that they have continuously lowered the threshold for the definition of "drunk driver" each year, hence more 'drunk drivers'. Most states now have the .08 threshold, which means you're legally drunk after two beers. Which probably means the cop that pulled you over should have arrested himself two hours earlier.

[eno_]

Amen brother. Safe drivers live in fear of having their lives turned upside down by a bogus DUI, which just creates the environment of corruption and political favors that enable hardcore drunks - the most likely killers - to continue to drive.

We are getting backdoor Prohibition, and the same old corruption and police-state environment are coming back through that same backdoor.

[uncbob]

We are getting backdoor Prohibition, and the same old corruption and police-state environment are coming back through that same backdoor.

Where have you been it is already here with the WOD which most BOOZERS support

[gooleyman]

"People with any DUI record should be required to have such a device tied into the ignition switch on their cars. If they have been drinking, the car won't run."

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I'm sure these could be tricked with a baloon full of air or a simple air pump. I don't know what the solution is, but a law requiring these devices wouldn't totally solve the problem. In fact, I doubt if any law passed would be unbeatable.

The way they made us safe drivers (way back when) was to show us blood and gore crashes in Drivers Ed. Scared the shavings out of me anyway. I doubt if those would even work today with all the blood and gore that is seen in today's TV shows and movies. People are too de-sensitized.

[Alberta's Child]

Drunken-driving fatalities rose from a record low of 1,072 in 1998 to 1,415 in 2002, from 30 percent of all traffic fatalities to 34 percent. None of these statistics approach the drunken-driving epidemic of the 1980s, when alcohol-impaired drivers routinely accounted for more than 50 percent of traffic deaths in the state. Nonetheless, the gains of the last decade, fostered by greater media attention to the issue and tougher laws, have begun to erode.

The statistics that are cited here are utter nonsense, since they have absolutely nothing to do with "drunk driving." The NHTSA uses the term "alcohol-related" to describe accidents in which alcohol plays any role whatsoever, even if it is not a case of "drunk driving." For example, a fatal accident is considered "alcohol-related" even if it involves an accident in which a drunk passenger who his killed in a vehicle driven by a perfectly sober motorist. It also considers an accident "alcohol-related" if a minimally-impaired driver with a BAC of 0.08% is killed when a perfectly sober driver falls asleep behind the wheel and runs a red light.