Drinking and Driving for Public Safety
Radley Balko | May 23, 2008, 1:14pm
Last month, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released the results of a report that asked 124,000 adults if they had driven under the influence of alcohol in the last year.
The results were kinda' fun. Wisconsin finished with the worst results in the country, with one in four respondents having admitted to driving under the influence over the previous 12 months. The survey results led to articles like this one, proving the psychology and demographics of the state's residents to explain their risky behavior.
But as the National Motorists Association points out, Wisconsin's highway fatality rate is significantly lower than the national average. Riffing off how government typically manipulates data like this in the public health context, NMA satirically suggests a public health campaign encouraging a drink or two before getting behind the wheel.
What's not exactly clear is whether the government agency that conducted the survey defined "under the influence (and if they did, how they defined it), or if they left it up to the respondents to come up with their own definition. What does seem clear is that the state with the most drivers under the influence (or at least the state that's most honest about it) isn't exactly littering its highways with dead motorists.
In other DWI news, you might want to steer clear of San Antonio this weekend. Officials there announced this week that police will forcibly draw blood from any motorist who refuses a breath test.
kinnath | May 23, 2008, 2:39pm | #
It all depends upon whether you view 360 deaths as an acceptable danger, of course.
From: http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/toptens/accidents/accidentsfull.html
There are so many interesting ways to die in America, that we felt it was just wrong to limit it to the most frequent causes, which are all boring diseases and infections and stuff. (Except in Alaska, where suicide generally makes it into the top ten.) You want to hear about the terrible calamities, the tragic consequences of an error in judgment or a general lack of coordination. Do we ever disappoint?
10. Machinery
Deaths per year: 350
We can thank the farmers of America for the inclusion of this particular misfortune as a cause of death. Between corn-huskers and wheat-threshers, is it a wonder? The reason it is last on the list is that there just aren't enough people in farming these days. Ironically, they have all been replaced by machines. Hmm accident, or deliberate act by wanton machinery? We may never know.
9. Medical & Surgical Complications and Misadventures
Deaths per year: 500
While we are incredibly insensitive people, we did not coin the term "medical misadventure"- the National Safety Council did. How is death by surgeon a "misadventure?" While we're not sure, we suspect that this number refers to elective surgeries that people undertake, such as liposuction. After all, the removal of a brain tumor is not usually considered to be an "adventure."
8. Poisoning by gases
Deaths per year: 700
There's nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning In this category, you mostly have deaths by carbon monoxide poisoning due to faulty operation of a heating or cooking appliance, or a standing automobile. We assume, however, that the noxious gasses emitted by Uncle Albert qualify too.
7. Firearms
Deaths per year: 1,500
We can thank our second amendment rights for all 1500 of these deaths; call it the "right to die" amendment. You probably don't want to know how many countries in the world do not even have "accidental death by firearms" on their top ten, or their top twenty. Suffice it to say that it's most of them. Of the 1500, you're looking at about 75% young males between the age of 14 and 25 (and getting younger every year), who unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else. For more information on the place of guns in society, click over to our pros and cons section.
6. Suffocation
Deaths per year: 3,300
Call this one the "Heimlich" section, as these deaths mostly resulted from blockages of the respiratory system by food or other objects.
5. Fires and burns
Deaths per year: 3,700
This would include deaths resulting from fires, such as smoke inhalation, falling beams, and sitting through Backdraft. Ironic that cancer is number two on the total deaths list, and a by-product of smoking is responsible for one of the top causes of accidental deaths. Are we getting the picture that this is a dangerous pastime? What kind of warnings do we have to put on these boxes, anyway?
4. Drowning
Deaths per year: 4,000
This includes all sorts of drownings in boat accidents and those resulting from swimming, playing in the water, falling in, or even having a bath. The human body is what, 70% water? And we begin our lives in a watery environment, there's lots of oxygen in water what's the deal? Something for the scientists to work on.
3. Poisoning by solids and liquids
Deaths per year: 8,600
These would be all your commonly recognized poisons, as well as such items as mushrooms, shellfish, drug overdoses, and problems with medicines-which is a wide category, and why it is so high on the list. What they leave out is things like food poisoning or salmonella, which they classify as "disease deaths" and place on another list.
2. Falls
Deaths per year: 14,900
Then we come to the America's Funniest Home Videos category of accidental death, including falls from ladders, down stairs, over curbs, off buses, into manholes, and through plate glass windows.
1. Motor vehicle crashes
Deaths per year:
43,200
The winner, by a ridiculously huge (and ever-increasing) margin is: death by car wreck.
= = = = =
So no, I don't see any justification to declaring nearly everyone that has one drink at dinner a ciminal if they get in a car and drive.
