A Closer Look at DUI Fatality Statistics
Information
courtesy of Lawrence Taylor - DUIblog
For
years now the "DUI crackdown", along with the accompanying
loss of constitutional rights, has been justified by the numbers
of deaths on the highways caused by drunk drivers. As the U.S. Supreme
Court in Michigan v. Sitz said, for example, DUI "sobriety
checkpoints" appear to violate our Fourth Amendment right to
be free of suspicionless stops by the police -- but this illegal
intrusion on our privacy is "outweighed" by the "carnage"
on our highways of 25,000 deaths caused each year by alcohol.
From
where did these statistics come?
Years
ago, the statistics kept on traffic fatalities included a category
for "alcohol-caused" deaths. To justify such things as
sobriety checkpoints, lowered blood alcohol levels and automatic
at-the-scene DUI license suspensions, however, these statistics
were subtly changed to "alcohol-related". Not "caused",
but related. This meant that a perfectly sober driver who hit and
killed an intoxicated pedestrian, for example, would be involved
in an "alcohol-related" incident. Similarly, a sober driver
who is struck by another sober driver carrying an intoxicated passenger
chalked up another "alcohol-related" death. Further, if
the officer believes the driver to be intoxicated but chemical tests
show he is not, the death is nevertheless reported as "alcohol-related".
In fact, if the tests indicate the presence of any alcohol at all,
say .02%, the fatality will be chalked up as "alcohol-related".
In
1999, the federal General Accounting Office (GAO) reviewed these
figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
-- and issued a report stating that they "raised methodological
concerns calling their conclusions into question ". The statistics,
the GAO report said, "fall short of providing conclusive evidence
that .08% BAC laws were, by themselves, responsible for reductions
in alcohol related fatalities." In other words, the statistics
weren't even valid when applied to alcohol-related fatalities, much
less alcohol-caused deaths.
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