getMADD.com
click on LOGO to return to HOME page

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."---Upton Sinclair

The chart & numbers below are from the official
'PA Driving Under the Influence Association' website--
A Pennsylvania Site funded in part by the PA Dept. of Transportation
(Missing is an analysis of the 1000+ other people killed in Pennsylvania in non-alcohol-related crashes.)
If these numbers are accurate, then the roads are not swarming with drunken drivers as MADD would have us believe.

All charts and text are from the OFFICIAL SITE except for COMMENTS in BLUE PRINT

There were 465 driver and passenger deaths in alcohol-related crashes in 2000, while 420 (90%) were the drinking drivers or their passengers.

 

Persons Involved Deaths
Drivers 357
Drinking Drivers 325 (91.0%)
Non-Drinking Drivers 32 (9.0%)
Passengers 108
Passengers with Drinking Driver

95 (88.0%)
Passengers with Non-Drinking Drivers

13 (12.0%)
Pedestrians 42
Drinking Pedestrians 31 (73.8%)
Non-Drinking Pedestrians 11 (26.2%)
TOTAL DEATHS* 510
*Includes 3 victims, status unknown

Comment: Even with the government bias, you can see that in the year 2000, only 56-59 out of 510 people who were killed were not the drinkers themselves or their passengers.  We don't know the specifics of who caused the crash and how much the drivers were drinking. That never seems to be important to these people.

Motorcycle crashes involved a large number of drinking drivers-more than twice the average for all vehicles. Drinking drivers of light trucks (which include pickups, vans, sport utility vehicles, etc.) were also above the average for drivers of all vehicles types.

Total Drivers in Crashes Passenger Car 161,992

242,929

 Light Trucks 66,899
Heavy Trucks 8,764
Motorcycle 2,887
Bus 1,357
Other 4,964
Drinking Drivers in Crashes Passenger Car 9,554 (5.9% of total)

14,109
(5.8% of total)

 Light Truck 4,541 (6.8% of total)
Heavy Truck 39 (0.4% of total)
Motorcycle 335 (11.6% of total)
Bus 3 (0.2% of total)
Other 127 (2.6% of total)

Comment: The 5.8% figure sure sounds very different from the percentages MADD and the NHTSA throw around. Are these 5.8% of drinking drivers any more of a threat to the driving public than other risk groups?

In 2000, roughly four out of five drinking drivers in crashes were male (across most age groups), with only slight variations among the age groups. The table below does not include an additional 151 drivers for whom age and/or sex were not known.

Age Group Male Female Total
Under 16 4 1 5
16 - 20 1,377 256 1,633
21 - 25 2,578 483 3,061
26 - 30 1,737 342 2,097
31 - 35 1,545 435 1,980
36 - 40 1,529 426 1,955
41 - 45 1,229 319 1,548
46 - 50 772 169 941
51 - 55 447 84 531
56 - 60 260 31 291
61 - 65 176 17 193
66 - 70 103 12 115
71 - 75 57 4 61
Over 75 49 6 55
Total 11,863 2,585 14,448



In 2000, as the table below shows, the four age groups from 21 to 40 had the highest percentage of drinking drivers within their respective age groups. After age 40, the percentage of drinking drivers within the succeeding age groups steadily declined. The under 21 age groups had smaller percentages, but still involved 1,638 underage drinking drivers.

Age Group Drinking Driver Non-Drinking Driver
Under 16 5 (0.3%) 1,564 (99.7%)
16 - 20 1,633 (4.1%) 38,711 (96.0%)
21 - 25 3,061 (9.7%) 28,398 (90.3%)
26 - 30 2,079 (8.1%) 23,631 (91.9%)
31 - 35 1,980 (8.2%) 22,218 (91.8%)
36 - 40 1,955 (8.0%) 22,440 (92.0%)
41 - 45 1,548 (7.0%) 20,514 (93.0%)
46 - 50 941 (5.2%) 17,160 (94.8%)
51 - 55 531 (3.8%) 13,382 (96.2%)
56 - 60 291 (2.9%) 9,750 (97.1%)
Over 60 424 (1.6%) 26,403 (98.4%)

 


Again, we do not deny that drunk drivers kill people and sometimes innocent ones at that. The question is why the government and groups like MADD insist on inflating the numbers to create hysteria in our citizens and knee-jerk reactions from our lawmakers.

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."---Mark Twain