Drunk Driving Statistics - Fact Or Fiction?

Drunk Driving Statistics - Each thirty minutes, another person is finished by a drunk driver - so says one set of dramatic statistics regularly cited by anti-alcohol activist groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Without doubt such a statistic should and does make an impact on anyone that hears it. Drunk driving isn’t a laughing matter, and it is definitely a significant issue - however, the situation may not be just about as dire as some make it out to be.

There’s a saying that 90% of all stats can be made to point out anything, 50% of the time. While this statement is an exaggeration, it contains a grain of truth - statistical data are not just about as scientifically sound as many folk want to believe. In several cases, statistical data become skewed ( whether purposely or unintentionally ) and communicate a message inconsistent with the actuality they are meant to outline. Could something similar to this happen in DWI-related research?

Alcohol-Related situations

If you believe the preferred media, about half of all traffic fatal injuries are caused by the actions of folk driving drunk. If you opt to find the truth yourself, you’ll doubtless come up with a percent closer to ten percent, according to the national Motorists organisation - a big drop, to say the least.

Why is the popularized figure so far off? One cause is an unlucky perplexity involving the term ‘alcohol-related incident.’ in most situations, any traffic fatality in which somebody concerned has a quantifiable quantity of alcohol in their system qualifies as an ‘alcohol-related incident.’

This applies even if the person with alcohol in their system was not physically or mentally impaired by alcohol in anyway, if he or she was not the cause of the accident, or perhaps if he or she was an innocent pedestrian who was not behind the wheel at all . That’s to say, if a sober driver is driving recklessly and kills a non-impaired pedestrian with a blood alcohol concentration ( BAC ) of .01 ( the legal limit is .08, for comparison ), the incident will be classified as alcohol-related and spread over the media by special interest groups and politicians.

Politicization of the Issue

Unfortunately, attempts to actually deter drunk driving have been hindered by the sensationalist approach of the preferred media, the single-minded crusade of biased interest groups, and the general politicization of the subject. Because dire DWI stats make good reports, promote interest groups’ narrow-minded agendas, and make for dramatic political speeches, they’re often preferred in the place of the truth.

Though the original goal of setups like MADD ( that is, the goal of preventing drunk driving ) is a noble one, this goal has been perverted, becoming more about highly obvious and politically attractive actions ( sobriety roadblocks and checkpoints, for instance ) than about solutions which have been scientifically demonstrated to work.