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MADD.com
"I just don't like being lied to."---Stan
Sober Drivers
Menace America's Highways
Do drunk drivers really cause half
of all traffic deaths? Not even close! As unbelievable as it sounds, the statistics from
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are grossly inflated by
including many drivers who were not drunk. Also included are passengers
with any sign that they were drinking and 2,000 tipsy or drunk pedestrians who are labeled
as drivers. Finally, through profiling, they add a percentage of extra drivers who the
police might have erroneously labeled as sober--they call this guesswork "the New
Methodology". No wonder the number is so high!
To be absolutely fair and accurate, the NHTSA does not use the term drunk driver.
The vague Government Speak term now in vogue is impaired driver.
"Despite the
tireless efforts of thousands of advocates, impaired drivers continue to kill someone
every 30 minutes, nearly 50 people a day, and almost 18,000 citizens a year. NHTSA and its
partners are working together to put a stop to these deadly statistics."
NHTSA definition:
"Impaired driving can be defined as a reduction in the performance of critical
driving tasks due to the effects of alcohol or other drugs. It is a serious crime that
kills every 30 minutes."---NHTSA website, March, 2004
How did these deceptive word games result in the scary statistics that you see on TV?
Back in the 1980’s, when drunk driving laws really were a farce, MADD (Mothers
Against Drunk Driving) started twisting the numbers to get attention. It worked. MADD was
responsible for a much needed overhaul of the DUI laws. No one noticed when
alcohol-related deaths morphed into the now common phrase “Half of all traffic deaths
are caused by drunk drivers.” After all MADD and the NHTSA regularly swap employees
and didn’t some politician say that the ends justify the means? So what’s the
problem? Support the Mothers and put the drunks in jail. It’s a no-brainer.
Well, the Mothers have changed. When
their founder, Candy Lightner left them, she expressed concerns that MADD was becoming an
anti-alcohol crusader--a Mothers Against Drinking: "It has become far more
neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned," she said. With a $44 million budget including
$9.3 million in taxpayer money, MADD is now a male dominated big business pushing for
tougher laws in all areas of alcohol sales, use and advertising much like the Anti-Saloon
League in pre-Prohibition times. They got the .08 BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) law passed
and are looking toward a .05 limit. The ultimate goal is .00—“You drink and
drive. You lose”. The MADD/NHTSA slogan is already in use.
Is this a bad thing? If you are one of the proposed 93 million people stopped with no probable cause at a roadblock (sobriety checkpoint) by police (traffic safety partners) you may give pause. Being told that if you refuse to breath into a machine your license will be suspended on the spot for one year may prompt you to ask to speak to your lawyer first. Being told that you can't do that may get you thinking, “What about my Constitutional rights?”
And what if you were drinking? You
feel ok, but the new limit only allows for a few drinks. Is that 4 or 3, or 2? As the
limit drops, the arrest rate for casual drinkers rises. And the laws have gone from farce
to harsh. First offense, no accident, can bring a month or more in jail and good-by
driver's license for one year-(state laws vary). The issue: Freedom and fairness vs.
perceived safety and revenge.
This brings us back to the NHTSA math. Chief Justice Rhenquist in 1990 wrote the majority
opinion allowing for sobriety checkpoints with no probable cause needed to stop you. His
reasoning was that 25,000 drunk driving deaths (a figure 3,000 over the NHTSA number and
more than double the actual total) made it ok to waive our Fourth Amendment rights. A 1998
case to allow drug sniffing dogs to check you out at the same stop was ruled
unconstitutional, so drug traffickers and terrorists need not worry.
The laws are based on these
deliberately deceptive government statistics which have scared the public into thinking
that there are deadly drunk drivers at every intersection just waiting to kill them and
their loved ones. Yes, drunk drivers do kill. In fact, nationally, 69% of the deaths are
the drunk driver killing himself. Good riddance to them. Unfortunately the high
BAC drunks are not the targets of the new laws. The casual drinker is now in the
NHTSA/MADD sights, with penalties similar or the same as those for the heavy drinker.
"Drivers in the .08 to .09 range often do not exhibit the blatant erratic driving of
higher BAC offenders, so that the evidence for probable cause may not be present for
stopping a vehicle," says MADD's Robert Voas. Let's call them closet drunks. Hence
the roadblocks. Incidentally, the NHTSA numbers show that there were more deaths related
to .01-.03 BAC drivers than those at .08-.09: (1.7% vs. 1.4%) and sober drivers kill 75.1%
of the highway deaths.
Over $265 million has been spent to
scare the American public over 20+ years. With that kind of money they could probably
convince us that sober drivers are the real highway killers if
they wanted to. How you spin the numbers depends on your goal. But then the Mothers would
never lie. Would they?
MADD
President, Karolyn Nummallee, “…we do not want to overlook the casual drinker.
If you choose to drink, you should never drive. We will not tolerate drinking and
driving—period.”
"The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth."-- William Jefferson Clinton