Creating Criminals
That is precisely what we did when we lowered the drunk driving blood alcohol level from .1 to .08, and now it's costing people their lives. How? From Radley Balko's most recent TCS article:
Alcohol industry advocates and civil libertarians made two predictions after .08 and roadblocks went national:
(1) Arrests would go up, triggering new outrages and calls for even more stringent laws aimed at curbing drinking and (as opposed to drunk) driving.
(2) Highways would get less safe, as cops, courts, and jail cells that could be used to pursue actual drunken drivers would instead be used to apprehend social drinkers.
We've certainly seen plenty of point one -- state legislatures are falling all over themselves to pass extra-constitutional policies aimed at "cracking down" on impaired driving.
Unfortunately, point two is proving correct, too.
After two decades of decline, alcohol-related deaths are inching upward again. It's important to point out that data from NHTSA on drunk driving fatalities and traffic deaths is significantly flawed. The "alcohol-related" figure includes all accidents where alcohol is in any way involved, including for example, an accident in which a sober driver strikes a drunk pedestrian. The Los Angeles Times concluded a few years ago that the number of cases in which a sober person was killed by a drunk driver is about one-fourth of the figure put out each year by NHTSA.
Nevertheless, since .08 and ubiquitous roadblocks, alcohol-related deaths are climbing again. Opponents of alcohol-control policies see this as vindication of their objections to roadblocks and .08. Oddly enough, a press release issued last week by the National Transportation Safety Board offers further proof that they may be right.
It's title? "Hard Core Drinking Driving Fatalities on the Rise."
"Americans are more aware than ever before of the dangers of drinking and driving," the release begins. "Few realize, however, that drunk driving fatalities continue to rise -- and that thousands of them are caused by extreme or repeat offenders known as "hard core drinking drivers."
The study goes on to point out that these "hard core" offenders account for 40% of traffic accidents but account for just 33% of drunk driving arrests.
It's actually worse than that. If we look at "fatalities" instead of "accidents," drivers with a BAC above .10 account for 77% of the alcohol-related body count. And the average BAC in fatal accidents involving alcohol is .17. Put another way, motorists with very high blood-alcohol levels account for an increasing percentage of highway fatalities, but a decreasing percentage of arrests.
Clearly, we're allocating limited law enforcement resources toward the wrong pool of offenders.
Read the whole thing.
Alcohol industry advocates and civil libertarians made two predictions after .08 and roadblocks went national:
(1) Arrests would go up, triggering new outrages and calls for even more stringent laws aimed at curbing drinking and (as opposed to drunk) driving.
(2) Highways would get less safe, as cops, courts, and jail cells that could be used to pursue actual drunken drivers would instead be used to apprehend social drinkers.
We've certainly seen plenty of point one -- state legislatures are falling all over themselves to pass extra-constitutional policies aimed at "cracking down" on impaired driving.
Unfortunately, point two is proving correct, too.
After two decades of decline, alcohol-related deaths are inching upward again. It's important to point out that data from NHTSA on drunk driving fatalities and traffic deaths is significantly flawed. The "alcohol-related" figure includes all accidents where alcohol is in any way involved, including for example, an accident in which a sober driver strikes a drunk pedestrian. The Los Angeles Times concluded a few years ago that the number of cases in which a sober person was killed by a drunk driver is about one-fourth of the figure put out each year by NHTSA.
Nevertheless, since .08 and ubiquitous roadblocks, alcohol-related deaths are climbing again. Opponents of alcohol-control policies see this as vindication of their objections to roadblocks and .08. Oddly enough, a press release issued last week by the National Transportation Safety Board offers further proof that they may be right.
It's title? "Hard Core Drinking Driving Fatalities on the Rise."
"Americans are more aware than ever before of the dangers of drinking and driving," the release begins. "Few realize, however, that drunk driving fatalities continue to rise -- and that thousands of them are caused by extreme or repeat offenders known as "hard core drinking drivers."
The study goes on to point out that these "hard core" offenders account for 40% of traffic accidents but account for just 33% of drunk driving arrests.
It's actually worse than that. If we look at "fatalities" instead of "accidents," drivers with a BAC above .10 account for 77% of the alcohol-related body count. And the average BAC in fatal accidents involving alcohol is .17. Put another way, motorists with very high blood-alcohol levels account for an increasing percentage of highway fatalities, but a decreasing percentage of arrests.
Clearly, we're allocating limited law enforcement resources toward the wrong pool of offenders.
Read the whole thing.
posted by PaulNoonan at
10:48 AM
4 Comments:
Phil here, Danny's friend. I am not totally convinced by your arguments.
First off, it may not be bad to make more stringent drinking and driving laws. As a 205 lb man, I can drink five drinks in one hour and be under .08. I am pretty drunk after I have five drinks in one hour, and don't think it would be safe for me to drive.
Second, I am not convinced resources will be wasted. Police already have BAC testing equipment and procedures for enforcing the law at .1 all that changes is the number. Could the police be out doing better things? Maybe, but keeping roads safe is pretty important. Yes, I guess a cop could be writing a ticket for someone who has a relatively safe .08 while someone with a .2 drives by, but it seems to me the person with the .2 is more likely to get stopped in the first place.
Now of course most fatalities occur when people are really really drunk. Hard core offenders of any law are always causing the most damage and are the most difficult to deter. But if hard core offenders account for 40% of the accidents and 77% of the body count, then 60% of the accidents and 23% of the fatalities are attributable to non hard-core offenders, who can be more easily and cheaply detered then hard core drunks who are extremely difficult to deter. Furthermore, I would guess that many hardcore offenders who cause fatalities at a level over .15 have driven at around .08 previously. Lowering the BAC gives us more of a chance to catch them.
By
Anonymous, at 1:51 AM
According to the BAC calculator you are at .08 after 5 beers in an hour, .09 with hard stuff.
http://www.erie.gov/stopdwi/bac_calculator.asp
And it's probably better to not drive when you're close to .1, but I know that I can drive after 5 in one hour, I would just prefer not to.
As to resources being wated, enforcing the .08 level often utlizes road blocks. Announcing road blocks has 2 effects. It keeps the really messed up from driving, because they know that they will not get thru a RB, and it keeps the extra responsible from enjoying a glass of wine with dinner just in case. So, you end up busting people who are not the source of any problem, and cops are taken off of the beat to man roadblocks.
If roadblocks are not used, randon stops (or simple speeding violations) will almost certainly be necessary to enforce the law, because those at .08 and .09 do not exhibit obvious signs of intoxication. So, people are once again being busted even though they show no symptoms of intoxication, and cops are looking for the less serious crime of speeding rather than dangerous driving.
I'm for doing things in the most cost effective way, and the easiest way to eliminate almost all dangerous drunk driving is to increase penalties for those over say 1.5, and to have officers look for signs of obvious intoxication, NOT just randomly pull over breathalize everyone with a tail light out.
Resources are finite, and busting those that are not showing signs of intoxication is evil. People who are really wasted are by far the biggest problem and tend to reoffend once they get out.
"Furthermore, I would guess that many hardcore offenders who cause fatalities at a level over .15 have driven at around .08 previously. Lowering the BAC gives us more of a chance to catch them."
In that case, why don't we just lower the freeway speed limit to 35 mph. After all, most really bad speeders probably have driven way over 35, and we could also catch the somewhat unsafe speeders too?
We don't because going 65 is not unsafe, just as driving with a BAC of .8 is not unsafe.
Also, I think you read a stat improperly. Hard core drinkers cause 40% of ALL traffic accidents, not just those involving alcohol. it does not follow that the remaining 60% are caused by non-hard core drinkers. They are, I suspect, more frequently caused by old people and teenagers. And this makes the the following stat more revealing, as people are more likely to die in an accident if someone had a BAC over .1, than they are in an average accident. Clearly we should focus resourses on major offenders.
I think that it would be easier to deter people if penalties escalated with BAC.
By
PaulNoonan, at 9:42 AM
Hi Phil.
By
PaulNoonan, at 9:42 AM
According to http://www.intox.com/wheel/drinkwheel.asp
I would be .075 after five american beers in one hour, and .068 after five light beers in one hour. (205 lb male.) Although after 5 gin and tonics, I would be at .085. The point is, that is a lot to drink and still be able to drive, even though some can do so safely, while others may think they can do so safely.
I did misread that 40% statistic. But the thrust of my argument is unchanged. Drinking and driving is like any other law, it is violated disproportionately more by a small group of motivated offenders. In situations like this, it has been shown that motivated offenders who break the law for emotional rather than rational reasons (like serial killers instead of hit-men, and drug addicts instead of drug dealers, or alcoholics rather than social drinkers) are virtually impossible to deter. Therefore, your argument to imprison hardcore offenders is a good one, but it only addresses those who are caught. .08 would serve to deter more "rational" people, although of course you have to deter a lot more social drinkers to equal neutralizing a hardcore offender. Still, this might actually be easier and more effective than targeting motivated hardcore offenders.
As far as .08 drivers being hardcore drivers in disguise, someone driving at .08 has already proven that he or she will drink a number of drinks and drive. I like your speed limit analysis, but I would argue that the speed limit was set at 85 mph when the BAC was .1, and we just set it back to 65 when we changed the BAC to .08. Of course traffic accidents are going to occur at 120 mph and .17 BAC. But better to have people trying to sneak by going 79 mph or with a BAC of .1 than it is to have them try to sneak by at 95 mph or .13. (2 beers over .1 for me if I drank for two hours). Finally, for lack of a better word for it, driving at .08 is a sort of "gateway" offense, just like smoking pot is correlated to everything. I'm not saying one has any direct effect on the other, but rather that they are strongly correlated. While I agree that relatively less harmful drinkers will be the innocent dolphins caught in a net that is trolling for over .15 tuna, that is the price many are willing to pay for cheap tuna and safer roads.
By
Anonymous, at 3:02 PM
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