Alcohol Nanny Breathalyzers

American Spectator ^ | 07 aug 07 | Eric Peters

[rellimpank]

"Pre-emptive war" got us into a real mess in Iraq. So maybe we ought to think twice before adopting similar measures when it comes to traffic law. Specifically, when it comes to an idea floated by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to require that all new cars be fitted with an ignition interlock that can detect alcohol in the driver's system -- and shut the car down if it does.

Several large automakers (including GM, Ford, Toyota and Honda) also support the idea -- and are working on ways to get these things into new cars, maybe within the next two or three years, if not sooner.

Sounds OK in principle -- sort of like the idea of liberating Iraq. The devil's in the details, though.

[The KG9 Kid]

Bryan, would you make these devices mandatory?

[Quix]

Statistics can be useful in assessing many thigns.

But one needs to know how they were arrived at and how plausible in practical terms it is to infer therefore what’s from them.

Citing the numbers killed without alcohol might be useful in some contexts and arguments. Doesn’t have any relevance for me in this discussion.

It doesn’t matter THAT much how many folks are killed in non-alcohol involved accidents. That’s a serious concern—but not my concern on this thread.

My concern is the insidious and preventable horrid deaths from alcohol. Any of those is too many.

[Gabz]

You really are in the middle of purdue country, eh?

Sweetie, my nearest neighbors are 170,000 broiler/fryers. At the moment I have no neighbors, they got moved out Monday night, but by next week.....

For the general populace, i really think ths idea blows, obviously, but I really don’t have much of a problem with it for people convicted of 2 or more DUI’s.

In Delaware it is offered as an option for the 1st ofeeners program, it keeps you from losing your license for 6 mnths.

[Quix]

I think you’re wholesale wrong again. But I’m checking . . .

Here’s an interesting article with stats on the causes of all deaths in the USA:

http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/causes.html

[Clam Digger]

I lucked out ... best friends ... We celebrated ... daughter

Awesome! I'm happy for you.

[Quix]

I’m willing to listen.

= = =

You must expect me to fall for anything! LOL.

I’m not really THAT much of an idiot! LOL.

[Gabz]

I never said you EXPLICTLY did anything.

[Quix]

Yeah, humor IS a VERY idiosyncratic sort of thing.

No sweat.

[Quix]

I was in court a while back on an unrelated matter and the judge was letting everyone with a first time DUI go with a $135 fine. DAMN! I thought it was more than that, and I want it to be a lot more than that. It’s a damn crime, and people ar paying less for DUI than a speeding ticket? That ain’t right!

= = =

Oh, dear. What a shock. I agree with you about something.

[Gabz]

Statistics can be useful in assessing many thigns.

NOt when they are biased because of a specific agenda.

My concern is the insidious and preventable horrid deaths from alcohol. Any of those is too many.

Hate to tell you this, but you've described all deaths on the road.

I have repeatedly stated I do not drive after I have been drinking, yet you insist that everyone who is disagreeing with you is in favor of drunk driving. Your personal bias is getting the upper hand on your logic at this point.

I'll pick this up in the morning, I really need to get some sleep.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Oh come on. Don’t sell yourself short.

You are a World Class Idiot. Don’t let anybody ever tell you otherwise. :-)

Or maybe you are just a man who is ahead of his time. If somebody said 30 years ago that we just want non-smoking sections on airplanes and then we’ll be quiet, people might have believed them. Oh, wait...

My advice can be summarized to you in one word: Incrementalism.

Ignition locks are the wrong way to go. Start with lawsuits, sin taxes, a social engineering experiment to “reduce public tolerance for alcohol use”, public service announcements and then just kick drinkers out of as many places as you can.

I hope I’ve helped you.

[Quix]

A 1993 study found: 400,000 deaths from tobacco 300,000 deaths from diet/activity pattern causes and 100,000 deaths from alcohol. Same doc: Causes of ACCIDENTAL DEATHS: (1) MOTOR VEHICLE 43.3% (2) Falls 17.8% (3) Poison,liq/solid 13.0% (4) Drowning 3.9% (5) Fires, Burns,Smoke 3.4% (6) Medical/Surgical Complication 3.1% (7) Other land transport 1.5% (8) Firearms 0.8% (9) Other (nontransport) 17.8% 2002 STATS ABOVE The five leading causes of fatal accidental death have remained the same between 1970 and 1998, and these top 5 account for 80% of all accidental deaths. Approximately forty percent of deaths from acts of nature are due to floods. Approximately forty percent of fire victims die in their sleep. Motor vehicle fatalities are the leading cause of death for people between ages 1-29, and the rate is particularly high between the ages of 15-24. A 16-year-old has 3 times the crash risk of an 18-year-old and 7 times the crash risk of a 25-year-old. As reported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, in 2005 the States with the highest number of motor vehicle crash deaths per 100,000 people were Wyoming (33.4), Mississippi (31.9), Montana (26.8) and South Carolina (25.7), whereas the States with the lowest were Massachusetts (6.9), New York (7.4), Connecticut (7.8) and Rhode Island (8.1). The fatalities were most likely to occur in single-vehicle crashes for Montana (72%) and the District of Columbia (71%), whereas fatalities were more likely to occur in multiple-vehicle crashes in Delaware (65%) and Michigan (60%). The percentage of pedestrians killed in motor vehicle accidents was highest in the District of Columbia (33%), Hawaii (25%), New York (22%) and New Jersey (21%), whereas it was lowest in Nebraska, Idaho and New Hampshire at 3%. According to CarandDriver.com there are 2.28 fatalities per 100 million vehicle-miles driven in Mississippi as opposed to only 0.87 in Massachusetts. In Wyoming 24% of the traffic is heavy trucks, whereas Hawaii is at the other extreme with only 3% of traffic being heavy trucks. (Crashes involving left-hand turns are much more likely to result in injury -- it is often safer to make three right turns than one left turn.) Driving under the influence of alcohol is the most important cause of death in automobile accidents -- followed by driver fatigue. The percentage of traffic fatalities attributed to alcohol dropped from 57.2% in 1982 to 45% in 1992. The figure is probably much higher, because amounts of alcohol below the legal level of intoxication (all amounts of alcohol) reduce cognitive & physical function. More than a third of pedestrians killed by a motor vehicle fatalities in 1992 were intoxicated. A Gallop poll indicated that nearly a third of respondents remember falling asleep while driving an automobile. People often have "microsleeps" without being aware of them. Automobile accidents due to such incidents are typically unexplained or attributed to other causes. Alcohol and sleepiness interact in a way that is far more dangerous than might be expected. Experiments with twelve healthy men in the 20−26 age range showed that either restriction of sleep to 5 hours or a blood alcohol level roughly equal to the United Kingdom limit for automobile driving nearly tripled the number of lane drifting incidents in the 30−60 minute driving period on a driving simulator. Combining both those levels of alcohol with sleep deprivation again nearly tripled the number of lane drifting incidents above that seen for either the alcohol or sleepiness alone. But the reported sleepiness of those who had the alcohol/sleep-deprivation combination was no greater than what was reported by those who had only been sleep deprived [OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE; Horne,JA; 60(9):689-692 (2003)].

[Quix]

For non-motor vehicle accidents in the United States between 1975-1995 33%, ethanol intoxication accounted for 32% of fatal falls, 42% of fatal fires/burns, 34% of fatal drownings and 29% of fatal poisonings. 32% of homicide victims and 23% of suicide victims were intoxicated [ANNALS OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE 33(6):659-701 (1999)]. (The most common cause of poisoning is carbon monoxide.)

Same ref as above.

[Quix]

This page has some excellent stats and illustrations on auto accidents etc.

http://www.automatedtransport.com/htmlv03.html

The deadly toll of auto accidents
6,328,000 auto accidents (USA, 2003) [1]
42,643 fatal auto accident deaths (USA, 2003) [1]
2.9 million injuries (USA, 2003) [1]
230 billion dollars in economic losses (2003) [1]
#1 cause of death for ages 3 to 33 (USA, 2003) [2]
750,000 to 880,000 est. annual deaths worldwide (1999) [3]
23 to 34 million est. annual injuries worldwide (1999

These numbers may be hard to comprehend–but it is worthwhile to consider their true impact. The first illustration at right is a one-square-foot cube made up of 50,00 pennies. Now consider that 42,643 people killed in car accidents in 2003. Look at the cube of pennies and imagine that each penny represents a person who died suddenly in a car wreck. Then consider also the suffering of the family and friends of each one of those 42,643 people.

Reading “2.9 million injuries” may not twist your guts. But it’s a different matter knowing that injuries include disfigurement, amputation, loss of sight, brain damage and paralysis.

[Gabz]

The tobacco death number is BS.........it is a GIGO computer generated number, thus nothing else in that post is worth paying a danged bit of attention to, is it?

[Eric Blair 2084]

Anybody paying attention knows it is all bogus. That's irrelevant. Quix and his anti-alcohol jihadists don't need to be right. They only need to convince gullible, progressive Democrat part time state legislators that they are right and that their proposal will benefit the "greater good" of society.

Quix might need the actual successful blueprint from the successful Tobacco Control experiment:

Now stop posting here Quix and get to work on straightening up those drinkers. I can't make it any easier for you.

[cva66snipe]

Technology has indeed been pretty awesome. I realize that you were being sarcastic, but anti-lock brakes have already saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

And $1500 for a replacement if the anti-lock valve messes up on a Dodge. Now how many persons drive traps because they can not afford newer cars? How many let that Brake warning light stay on for years because they can not scrape up the $1500 for just the part? The brakes work so they drive on. I do myself actually and no I don't wear a seatbelt either. And that valve is a wear item BTW.

How far? How far do we take the Nanny State? Good grief there was posters in this forum cheering on a "you must report your guns stolen law" in Conn signed by a RINODEM governor. Car prices are getting out of reach and to blasted complicated to be worked on as it is. Common sense says the more you add to a machine to more can and will go wrong.

I bet you that insurance companies can prove most accidents involve small red cars or trucks as the drivers are more aggressive. Now what you say we outlaw red cars huh? How about the off gray ones that are hard to see? I want them off the road along with those horrid super bright blue headlights. Where do we stop?

This device is malarkey and I smell an insurance company lobby backing this device as becoming mandatory. It's to cut their loss margins ya know and that is the real backer of this nonsense just like they invade every other part of our life with their mandatory B.S. Nanny Laws! To protect their stinking profits!

You're a lawyer. How many codes and laws including building codes etc are actually written to protect profit losses for insurers? I'd say today 75% of our laws in this nation.

Must every single aspect of our lives now be Mother or rather Big Brother May I? I am disgusted at persons calling themselves Conservative who agree to the stupidity reasoning of liberals ala Hillary Clinton if it saves one life it's worth it mentality for passing still more Nanny Laws in our nation. The M.E. terrorist nor the Chinese aren't going to be our ruin in this nation, it's going to be the Lovers of the Nanny State who think everybody needs a monitor, license, permit, or camera on them 24/7 to save them from themselves or someone else. No Thanks.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GOOD OLD FASHIONED PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!

[CSM]

“Actually, I haven’t worked formally in alcohol treatment for more than 20 years.”

Interesting that you have the expectation that your fellow FReepers have psychic abilities when in post number 210 you said:

“the fellow in my alcohol group . . . “

I suppose that I was expected to read into your post that you were referencing an occurance that happened 20 years ago.

“You are WRONG yet again.”

That happens quite frequently when one is LIED to. Of course, I don’t expect honesty from NANNY STATERS.

I am also not a bit surprised that you failed to actually address any of the actual points that I made to you.

[CSM]

“You are welcome to call facts about alcohol and alcoholism and drunken drivers”

I have yet to see any “facts” in your rantings. You are nothing but a nannystater that would like to pass laws affecting 300 million Americans, based solely on one person that you had interacted with while you were profiting form alcohol regulation.

[CSM]

“But I don’t think cell phones cause raging husbands to beat their wives and kids..”

Exactly how would an interlock device on all vehicles, prevent spousal and child abuse?

“accidents with cell phones. Are they truly equal to the seriousness caused by alcohol abuse?”

See these links and you can find the seriousness of accidents related to cell phones. Feel free to donate to Mike’s memorial while you are at it.

http://www.mbkmemorial.org/

http://www.wwj.com/pages/216855.php?imageGalleryXRefId=163319

I suppose that since alcohol was not involved, that he is less dead. Yepper, you guessed it, the person that caused this needless death walked away unharmed. The difference between you and me is that I would prefer to hold this individual responsible for her actions and you would prefer to pass a law banning cell phone/blackberry usage at a federal level.