Misconceptions in Drunk Driving Accidents

Since the failure of Prohibition decades ago, alcohol has become an important, inextricable part of our society. Whether having a casual drink with friends, going out to a nice dinner with a significant other, or yes, bar-hopping on a Friday night, countless Americans consume alcoholic beverages every year. Unfortunately, as many of us know, there is a darker side to alcohol consumption. Drunk driving accidents, for example, claim thousands of lives every year.

The reaction to such incidents has been varied, with opinion split between "pro-alcohol" advocates and "pro-temperance" advocacy groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). However, somewhere in the midst of media posturing, political wrangling, and impassioned speech-making on both sides, many facts about alcohol and drunk driving have been pushed aside and replaced with more dramatic statistics used to prove opposing points of view.

For example, people are often confused about the differences or similarities between the legal limit of blood alcohol and the actual state of intoxication. In the United States, the legal limit of Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) is .08 percent. Driving with a BAC over this limit is illegal and can lead to arrest and conviction for DWI. This legal limit should not be confused with a practical limit of intoxication. The figure .08 means different things for different people. Many heavy drinkers, for example, show little or no signs of clinical intoxication at a BAC of .08.

Sometimes, misguided, though well-intentioned beliefs lead to policies which do more harm than good. For example, in some jurisdictions, known as "dry" counties, a system similar to Prohibition reigns, in the hope that outlawing alcohol will prevent drunk driving fatalities. On a shallow, surface level, such a system is plausible, though possibly unattractive to residents and local businesses. Unfortunately, the numbers do not bear out such an assumption; studies have consistently shown that states with a high number of "dry" counties have more drunk driving-related accidents than those with less "dry" counties. The reason? Imposing an artificial "dry" county ban on alcohol only serves to make people drive farther and more frequently to consume alcohol, leading to more accidents in practice - an important example of the difference between theory and application.

Drunk Driving Car Crashes

Drunk driving is the most common cause of hazardous car crashes. Drinking may be a lot of fun, but it can prove to be fatal when it comes to driving under the influence of alcohol. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), any motor vehicle accident is considered alcohol-related if either the offender or the victim involved in the accident is determined to have had a blood alcohol concentration or BAC of .01 gram per deciliter (g/dL) or higher. Drunk driving can cost victims money, as well as their life. Approximately, 41 percent of all motor vehicle accidents are alcohol-related. In America alone, about 18,000 people are killed in alcohol-related accidents every year, and there are 327,000 injuries.

The number of car crashes and injuries in all the US states has been reduced considerably because of the effective enforcement of legislation regarding the drinking age and restrictions on establishments to sell alcohol to teenagers. Car crashes due to drunk driving can be prevented. Any individual who has consumed alcohol should think twice before driving. The "designated driver" program has helped prevent many alcohol related traffic injuries and deaths. Car crashes do cost people their lives, and drunk driving is a punishable offense.

Several measures have been adopted in the US to reduce these drunk driving fatalities. Several checkpoints run by local and state police are closely monitored for drunk drivers. Punitive laws have been introduced to curb drunk driving, especially when children are in the automobile. People who are caught driving under the influence lose their license for several months, depending on the number of offenses. As per law, a bar or a host may also be held accountable for the damages caused in a car crash for serving alcohol to an already intoxicated person.

In some cases, accidents are caused due to drunken pedestrians or cyclists. The car driver is not held responsible in such scenarios.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving

Her 13-year-old daughter’s tragic death in a drunk driving accident in 1980 prompted Candy Lightner to form Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, a non-profit organization in the United States and other countries.

The organization began to grow rapidly in 1983 when a film on Lightner was aired on television, making MADD a household name. It tasted its most cherished success with the imposition of a 1984 federal law that asked states to raise the minimum legal purchase and possession (but not the drinking age) to 21 or lose federal highway funding. Once the United States Supreme Court upheld the law in 1987, every state fell in line.

In 1990, MADD launched its ""20 by 2000"" plan to reduce by 20% the proportion of traffic fatalities that are alcohol-related by 2000. In fact, this came three years early in 1997. In 1991, MADD released its first Rating the States report in which it graded the states in their progress again drunk driving. Since then, Rating the States has been released four times. MADD’s National Board of Directors in 1999 unanimously voted to change the organization’s mission statement and include the prevention of underage drinking, whether or not the drinking was associated with driving.

Since the establishment of the organization, it has played a key role in getting thousands of anti-drunk driving laws passed. It also helped popularize the use of ""designated drivers.""

In recent times, MADD lobbied hard to reduce the legal limit for blood alcohol from BAC .10 to BAC .08. Eventually in 2000, this standard was passed by Congress, and by 2005, every state had an illegal .08 BAC limit.

MADD has successfully advocated, and still advocates, laws for more stringent punishment of offenders of laws against driving under the influence, as well as laws against drinking and driving