Drunk driving is one of the most talked-about automobile-related crimes in the United States. Listening to a radio show earlier this week helped me to realize how there are two radically different ends to the opinion spectrum. They all make interesting points, and I’m not here to express my personal opinion.
MADD stands for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. They are a non-profit group design to spread awareness of this activity that results in thousands of deaths each year. Some say, though, they have overstepped their bounds in recent years. They’ve turned their attention to promoting the abolition of all underage drinking. Again, I’m not say underage drinking is acceptable or not, but it seems to be a lack of focus on their original goals and efforts. This is coming from their staunch critics, of course. These critics also present cases of how MADD uses skewed and extrapolated statistics (but then again, who doesn’t when they’re trying to promote a cause or make a persuasive argument one way or the other?). For example, it has been reported that when they produce numbers for “alcohol-related accidents,” this can include an incident where a driver runs up onto a curb and strikes someone sipping on a beer.
I’m not saying this is fact or not. My main criticism toward MADD do not deal with the use of supposedly falsified statistics, but that they are promoting other agendas under the guise of being Mothers (which I think adds an element to the whole organization, mommies dedicating their time to the cause) simply being Against Drunk Driving.
Another interesting and not wholly disputed aspect of the whole drunk driving debate deals with police and their “crackdown” on drunk driving in the past ten or twenty years. This is a noble cause to be sure. Drivers are stupid enough as it is; we need to get more of these sots off the streets, I agree. But, it’s a fine line, no matter what MADD or SADD or RADD (I would say GLAAD, but I don’t think their main ideologies deal with drunk driving) say, between spending all night at the bar versus having a beer or two. This is of course where BAC, blood alcohol content, comes in. The flaw of BAC, unfortunately, is that it doesn’t necessarily correspond to the “drunkenness” of the individual. Number of drinks isn’t the most effective indicator either. People, in general, are physiologically different to an infinite degree. So, this generalized test is the best we can do at this point.
What I’m getting at is that as the battle wages on to stop drunk driving, revenue is an integral part of the equation. (I almost sound liberal here, ugh.) A DUI or DWI usually ends up costing the offender ten times more than another type of ticket, say speeding or running a red light, for example. That means the money is flowing as we get all these drunkards off the street. That presents a unique question. What are the end goals of someone proposing a lower legal BAC limit to be passed and become a law? (Right now, it’s .08 in the USA. Some politicians, MADD, and other groups want it lowered to .06 and downward.)
Is it so that we can save even more lives each year? Yes, there will be more arrests, which will inevitably have helped to avoid more accidents and deaths. Is it so the governments will create even more revenue by taking advantage of the lower BAC limit? Quite possibly. But is it at the cost of the guy who had two beers visiting with his friend he hadn’t seen for ten years, then heading home at 9:30 to go to bed? Maybe.
It’s just interesting to get a broader perspective on the whole situation. Yes, drunk driving is stupid and ridiculous, and I do not condone it. But, it would be enlightening to know how much the crackdown has to do with saving lives and how much it has to do with increasing revenues. The hard part is trying to get unbiased information on the issue itself.
Check out www.madd.org and www.getmadd.com for differing viewpoints on the issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment