Under Which Influence
By Mitch Berg
The problem with “reporting” on drunk driving is that it is such a very, utterly, supremely emotional topic. Most peoples’ exposure to the subject is intensely personal. So too with Strib editor Nancy Barnes and her encounter with a drunk:
To this day, I can see the headlights of the old pickup bearing down on my side of the rural, two-lane highway in Pennsylvania.
Behind the wheel was a driver so drunk he had already passed out. I would later learn that he had so many drunken-driving convictions, his license had already been suspended for a decade. But there he was, driving again.
I was a young mother of 30, with two baby girls, driving home from a late-night editing shift. I can remember worrying about who was going to care for my babies as, terrified, I instinctively yanked the steering wheel to the right and ran off the road. His truck clocked my little Honda, swiping it all the way down the driver’s side, but leaving me physically unharmed. The police found him passed out in a ditch not too much farther down the road.
Many people, far too many people, are not as fortunate as I was that night.
Tha is, of course, tragically true. And since it bleeds, it does indeed lead:
Every other day, someone in Minnesota is killed in a drunken-driving accident.
And that rate is broadly down over the past thirty years or so. But it’s still a ghastly toll.
The Strib is starting a series purporting to examine drunk driving. I’m going to examine the examination; that’s what mediabloggers do.
But first, a quick digression:
———-
Drugs cause immense pain and dislocation in our society. Thousands of people die of drug-related caues every year in the United States. And so for generations now the United States Government has embarked on a “War on Drugs” to, ostensibly, eradicate the drug problem in the United States.
And yet, desipte the billions spent here and abroad every year to fight drugs, thousands die every year; gang members mowed down in drug-turf-related drive-by shootings; innocent bystanders to gang turf wars; dealers who hold out on their distributors; rivals gunned down over turf; cops shot intervening in drug-crimes; people killed in robberies as addicts try to get drug money…
…and even a few overdoses (one source put it at under 300 a year) and the usual pathologies related to long-term addiction, which are tragic, but fade int o the background compared to America’s other big addictions, food and cigarettes and alcohol. Although, oddly, no American neighborhoods are being shot up by cigarette dealers, and the Mexican Army is not engaged in any long-term military actions against Big Mac traffickers.
IT doesn’t seem a huge leap that it’s the government prohibition that causes the biggest problems when it comes to drugs. An that’s not a radical observation; an organization as big and stupid as the entire US Government realized much the same thing about its last attempt at social-engineering-by-prohibition, Prohibition.
Like the War on Drugs, the “solution” was a dismal failure at addressing the “problem”, much less solving it.
———-
Back to Barnes:
Now, on the surface, there’s nothing new about drunken driving; it’s been a scourge on the roads for decades. This state, like others, has responded with tougher laws and stiffer penalties for those who climb behind the wheel and drive while intoxicated. Those laws have had some impact: The actual number of deaths has trended down over the last quarter-century.
But last year, as one tragic example of a drunken-driving-related death after another made its way into the paper, the editors and reporters in the newsroom decided that it was time to take a fresh look at the depth of the toll on our state.
Cool.
But, unfortunately, when Barnes says “Fresh Look”, what she really means – possibly without realizing it – is “very, very stale look, probably through the same precise lense that caused the “problem” you’re purportedly trying to address”.
The numbers were startling, even to veteran journalists. They suggest that as a society, we still haven’t really come to grips with this.
We need to define what “grips” means with this issue. Barnes has numbers, of course…:
Some 35,000 people are arrested for drunken driving in Minnesota each year. More than half a million Minnesotans have a DWI on their record. More than 100,000 have had three or more arrests. It begs the question: Why are so many people still driving while smashed in Minnesota?
…but does citing them lead to asking the right questions, much less getting the right answers?
Run the numbers in your head. Ten percent of Minnesotans have a DWI of some sort or another. Six tenths of a percent of Minnesotans are arrested every year – six out of every thousand. That is an immense law-enforcement effort
A team of reporters is taking a sharp look at the stories behind those numbers, examining this issue from the highways, from the courtrooms and from the homes of grieving family members. In addition to these in-depth reports, we will highlight at least one drunken-driving case in print and online each week, and we will host an ongoing community discussion online about what can be done in Minnesota to make our roads safer.
I wonder if that “sharp look” is going to ask any of the following questions:
- Of those 35,000 arrests a year, how many involve drivers whose drinking has been criminalized by the recent reduction of the legal Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) limit from .1% to .08%?
- What percentage of fatalities were caused by drivers picked up with less than a .1% BAC?
- Just as importantly, what was the average BAC involved in fatal “drunk driving accidents”?
- What percentage of accidents and fatalities are caused by drivers with BACs less than .1%?
- How many law enforcement resources are diverted to chasing people whose BAC is very, very low, and almost never cause accidents or fatalities?
- How many fatalities might be averted if those resources were instead spent on keeping habitual drunks, and people arrested multiple times with BACs well above .12%, off the road?
- If there is no plan to ask those questions – why? Is it because Mothers Against Drunk Driving is the motivator for this “reporting”, and the answers wouldn’t fit their agenda?
I’d love to get that answer.
January 18th, 2010 at 8:59 am
The most risible part is the business about taking a fresh look. They might want to say instead, “we stole the idea from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which ran a similar series last year.” But that would take away the chance to pat themselves on the back for innovative thinking.
January 18th, 2010 at 10:07 am
Mitch, not 100% sure I get your point. Is your point that part of why the stats are so high is because we lowered the limit for which a DUI kicks in? If so – my opinion.
You may be entirely correct that most serious accidents are not the fault of those who are inebrieated just a bit over the limit. In that sense, perhaps it would be superior to go back to the more generous limits.
But, in my opinion, the purpose of the new limits isn’t to capture everyone who is a very serious danger. It’s to alert people to the fact that if they’ve had more than a modest amount to drink, they shouldn’t drive.
I’m pretty much a teetotaler. Yet, from what I observe, those who do drink have no idea exactly what their BAC is when they are done drinking and go to hit the road. If the laws are pretty strict, then at least some of those people will appreciate that they either can’t have much to drink and drive – or – if they drink, then someone else has to drive.
You surely are correct that it is quite an emotional issue. I’ve known people on “all sides” of it. Lost a friend in high school to a guy with multiple DUI’s who was still out and about and on the road. Have friends who have committed crimes because of alcoholism.
I wish that we could somehow focus more on getting people treatment instead of getting them into prison – without enough wisdom to know exactly how to do it. Yet, whatever we can do to prevent people from getting behind the steering wheel when there is a chance their judgment is compromised by alcohol – I’m for that, too!
January 18th, 2010 at 10:18 am
I think Mitch may be getting at this: what has been the net effect of moving the BAC from 0.10% to 0.08%? Is this progress toward prohibition having a positive effect on the problem, or are the same people who were drinking and killing others before still killing them today? Is this an emotional solution and not a real one?
January 18th, 2010 at 10:24 am
The Milwaukee paper’s look at a DWI in each Wisc county was interesting. My thought…..I wish the MADD crowd would aggressivly go after the worst issue….slick expensive lawyers who can get the worst drunks out of trouble. I used to work with a guy whose lawyer got him out of every DWI.
January 18th, 2010 at 10:27 am
I suspect there might also be some discussion of the reach and larger objectives of the Nannies Against Drunk Driving And Just About Everything Else.
January 18th, 2010 at 10:37 am
I think the question needs to be, “how about first finding the haystack?” The purpose of DWI laws isn’t to decrease it, nor to punish it after the fact, the need is to discourage it as much as possible. To do that, I suggest that a moderate course of action would be to follow the Swedish system. Go ahead and put the limit back up to .1 or even .15 (losing federal highway funds, unfortunately), where it was historically– to the point of “badly impaired.” Then, if you are caught driving above that limit, we take your license, we take your CAR, and you never drive again. This penalty would convince most reasonable people to plan ahead, and decide how you were getting home from the bar before setting out. Problem gone, except for the people that now have 4,8, even 15 DWIs under their belt, but there is a solution for that, too. On your second offense, we follow the Albanian system. Bang! No more repeat offenses.
January 18th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Peg,
I had a few points, really.
1) I think a case can be made that MADD’s drive toward prohibition clogs the courts with arrests for very low levels of intoxication that have little to no effect on accident rates (100 arrests in Minnesota a day, on average), eating up immense resources punishing people who objectively are virtually no problem. That HAS to take money and resources away from dealing with the people who ARE objectively the problem – people who drive at over .12, especially those with multiple arrests. My iconic image; a cop standing beside the road giving a breathalyzer test to someone he pulled over for a broken tail light who blows a .081, while someone with a .20 swerves past them both. Were the cop not noodling around with someone who, objectively, had a 0% chance of hurting someone, he could have been in his car, focusing on catching the real drunk. My image is hypothetical, but metaphorically perfectly correct.
2) I suspect this “investigation” will cover only the parts of the story that MADD wants covered; I strongly suspect that it is driven by some contact between prohibitionist lobbyists and the editors of the Strib. I suspect that any information suggesting that BAC < .1 is statistically almost perfectly harmless (of which there is plenty), and that people with < .1 BAC cause statistically no fatalities, will be aggressively spiked, and at the end of the day the “reporting” will call for an agenda that mirrors MADD’s in every particular. We shall see.
January 18th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
I have a bias; my brother (step brother, technically, but very much family)was killed by a drunk driver.
If your argument is that .08 is a bad limit, please share some links here.
I don’t abstain from alcohol, but I’m very careful about limiting my consumption. Clearly people show the effects of alcohol very differently; people who drink more / drink more often have a very different tolerance.
My point being, BAC is only one measure of impairment.
The other concern I have with your numbers is that it reflects the numbers of people caught………not the number who drive under some degree of alcohol influence.
It would make sense to me that penalties reflect BOTH the number of arrests for this crime AND the degree of impairment /BAC. The current laws as enforced and administered seem at best pretty uneven. I don’t think the one-size-fits-all BAC works very well, but I’m frankly more concerned with the repeat offenders, and greater penalties for death, injury, and property damage. When we get to providing special license plates for drunk drivers, we may be assisting law enforcement to identify these problem people, but we may also be sending mixed messages about being willing to accomodate the behavior.
January 18th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
The problem with dropping the BAC limit is that it’s a high cost solution (in terms of freedom, in terms of law enforcement, courts etc) for very little incremental change. It’s also a bad example for all kinds of other problems–Ray LaHood’s crusade to ban all cell phone use in cars (ALL as in no hands free, no passengers on cells, nada).
It seems to me that a great many of the drunk driving accidents that happen are repeat offenders. With today’s higher penalties and other requirements I would assume that people who can’t stop driving after facing these kinds of consequences are alcoholics, not just people who like partying a little too much. These are people for whom, taking away their license, their car, etc. means nothing. When they are drunk they will drive anyway with a borrowed or stolen car if necessary. The only thing that will keep them from driving is incarceration or involuntary commitment in a treatment facility.
Dropping the BAC isn’t going to do anything to stop them. It will stop law abiding people from going to bars after work, to watch sports events etc. If you want to kill bars dead then the BAC is the way to do it. I predict that it won’t limit the number of DD deaths though–people will drink at private homes and other places and they will still try to drive home.
January 18th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Here is something else to think about.
If you get charged with DUI, you are automatically slapped with two charges; one criminal, one civil.
The civil case is brought by the DMV. In this instance, the burden of proof lies with the accused, you are assumed guilty. The judge also is not weighed down with finding your guilt proved beyond all reasonable doubt….in short, you’re screwed.
That’s not the worst of it though, if the constitution is important to you at all.
That civil conviction, that is taken as a given, can, and absolutely will be used as a prior “alcohol related” offense in criminal court.
That means if you are found innocent of a DUI charge in criminal court, you will still have a prior alcohol related conviction on your record which will be used to bolster a second offense and enhance the penalty.
I’m not going to get into the worthiness of curbing DUI, and I’m certainly not going to attempt to suggest that a guy that falls out of the car on to his face is a “victim”; but if you care about the fairness and integrity of our legal system, you need to have a care.
January 18th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I have a bias; my brother (step brother, technically, but very much family)was killed by a drunk driver.
Sorry about your loss, however long ago. But I’d have to ask – what was the perp’s BAC? I’d be frankly amazed if it were below .12-.15.
If your argument is that .08 is a bad limit, please share some links here.
I’m looking for them; I’ve seen them, but they’re a little hard to find; there’s not much political upside to funding research into “being lenient with drunks”, any more than there is with researching “legalizing drugs” because the Drug War is a flop. MADD is a tough group to cross, even as much as they need crossing.
I don’t abstain from alcohol, but I’m very careful about limiting my consumption. Clearly people show the effects of alcohol very differently; people who drink more / drink more often have a very different tolerance.
My point being, BAC is only one measure of impairment.
Right – but it’s the only one law enforcement currently observes as an empirical limit.
The other concern I have with your numbers is that it reflects the numbers of people caught………not the number who drive under some degree of alcohol influence.
Well, yeah – because those are the numbers the Strib report is using. Which is exactly my concern; that the Strib piece will lump a guy who’s had three beers in two hours and might spike very, very briefly above .08 – a level with very little documented correlation with accidents – in with the people who actually do the killing, the people who bang out .12+ BACs with other symptoms to boot!
It would make sense to me that penalties reflect BOTH the number of arrests for this crime AND the degree of impairment /BAC. The current laws as enforced and administered seem at best pretty uneven.
Right. That’s a fairly rational response. It happens to be one of my own! 🙂
And my concern – which I’ll elaborate as the Strib series continues – is that that is exactly what MADD, and their henchpersons in Government, want. To create an environment of uncertainty, of fear, of ignorance, where everyone has to do more or less as Margaret says. They want a de facto prohibition.
MADD is the WCTU under a new name, substituting the exploitation of emotion and anger (however justified in many cases, like your own and Nancy Barnes’) for religious moralizing.
January 18th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
(hopefully closed open Italics tag)
I think one thing that could help curb the repeat offenses is mandatory interlocks for multiple offenders. 2nd alcohol DWI/DUI? 5 years mandatory. 3rd? Lifetime mandatory. Since taking away the license obviously doesn’t stop them from driving, taking away the car might.
Altho then I can see a problem with a married couple where one has the interlock mandated, but owns 2 cars, could have the other car titled only in the non-offender’s name, and that car would still be perfectly available for the offender to drive.
January 18th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
I don’t get that “MADD is the WCTU.” Similarities, yes, but while one can claim the right to drink responsibly, can anyone claim the right to DWI? It cannot be done responsibly! Again, the point should be that people should be discouraged, in the strongest possible terms, from endangering themselves and others by engaging in an avoidable activity. Drink at home, with a designated driver, take public transit or a cab, or get a nearby hotel room until you are no longer intoxicated. PLAN for what you will do, before leaving for the tavern. If you don’t, and kill someone on the road, it ought to be premeditated murder. I know we don’t think like that now, but we should.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
I would also be interested to see how many people get stopped between .08-.10. The nature of where I work means that I haven’t has a DUI arrest where the driver was under .15, and was stopped for doing something dangerous or clearly showing intoxication (The guy who drove past 2 “Do Not Enter” gates and hit a construction truck working on the 35W bridge comes to mind).
However, I still find the idea that 3 beers in 2 hours will put anyone at .08 to be suspect. Those would be some really big beers.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Thanks for the condolences again, but you were supportive at the time. I mentioned my loss to be fair in presenting my view.
When I see the lower BAC, what I think of is the progressively greater impairment of judgement the more one drinks. I see the lower BAC as an attempt to set the defining threshold of intoxication where going beyond that limit, not only does someone begin to be a risk operating amotor vehicle, but their ability to recognize their intoxication and act accordingly is a concern.
It doesn’t take a great degree of intoxication for a driver who is only minimally impaired to cause great injury to a pedestrian – or bicyclist, given the power and size of a motor vehicle. Not every driver is a good driver sober; for some, depending on circumstances, it doesn’t take much to do harm.
What works in places like europe works in part because of a more developed and more widely used public transportation system.
The drunk driver who killed my brother was seriously drunk,I don’t remember anymore what his BAC was, but you are probably correct about the level.
He was not however an habitual drinker, had no previous driving offenses much less a DUI. He was a very devoted family man – husband and father – who had lost his job, had a sick child who he had just been told was quite possibly going to die, more likely given he no longer had health insurance through his employment. He was a man momentarily overwhelmed who went out and tied one on. The weight of his remorse on top of everything else was considerable.
He subsequently asked for forgiveness from my family, and while it was easily the hardest thing each of us has ever done, we gave it. Although it doesn’t stop me tearing up a bit as I write this, despite the passage of time.
Now, the man who just made the newswith his 19th ot 20th DUI, but only his third in the past ten years on the other hand………..
January 18th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Italics hurt my eyes. 😉
January 18th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
As you note Mitch, it is impossible to have a discussion regarding drunk driving laws/enforcement/punishment and question what appears to be the rationale behind the Strib’s series without sounding like someone who hands out fifths of Jack Daniels as road pops to his driving friends like Wall Drug hands out ice water to thirsty drivers. That said, MADD has gotten so far away from it’s original mission (of being against drunk driving) that its founder Candy Lightner left the group as it became more prohibitionist than she liked. In my opinion, MADD has become nothing more than a sympathetic front group for the insurance industry (know anyone who has gotten an .08 DUI? The premium increases are the same as someone who was drunker and they make the health insurance industry look like pikers). When I travel outside the US, people are amazed at how tolerant we are of drunk drivers. When we discuss the penalities, theirs are generally much more harsh – year suspended for the first offense, lifetime suspended for multiple offenses, etc. I would not have a problem with hitting a multiple offender with lifetime suspension and as these things go – when they get caught driving without a license, locking them up for years. What bothers me is the lack of another side to the issue – like looking at the insurance industries grubby mitts on some of this legislation and what science supports an .08 BAC vs. an .06 or a .12, etc.
January 18th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
J. Ewing shares my point of view. Have very extreme penalties for drunk driving – and enforce them. IF we did that, you’d have far fewer people taking the risk of driving under the influence… and for the ones that still do – well, they ought not be on the road.
I don’t think you need tons of public transportation for it to work. As someone said – just plan ahead. If you go out drinking, either take someone with who doesn’t (me, for instance), or have a buddy take turns being the “abstinent one” for the evening – or take a taxi home. But, be sure you don’t get behind the wheel when you’ve had a few.
How many people have a clue how inebriated they are when they get behind the wheel after drinking? I don’t know – but I would guess an awful lot of people really don’t know at all.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:24 am
repost of a comment I made at the Star Tribune.
Question to the cop who commented above. +++++++++++++
If police “rarely if ever” arrest at .08% why is the law on the books? I believe that you personally use digressions but what about other cops?……..Have you ever heard of the “High Q”?……Basically police arrest a “yuppie type” on a marginal DUI. (thus “high quality). Monied yuppie doesn’t want a DUI. There is subtle “steering to a certain bail bondsman. This leads to a the bial bonder “steering” the yuppie to certain lawyers. Lawyers steer cases to certain judges who tend to give a lot of continuances. Cops got overtime money from federal DUI grants so the cop makes money here. The yuppies pay the lawyers retail and yuppies rarely skip bail. Yuppie eventually beats the rap but has a large lawyer bill and the bail bondsman has an easy 10% fee
January 19th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Mitch wrote”Right. That’s a fairly rational response. It happens to be one of my own!
(Does agreeing with you several times in a day or so make me an honorary conservative? Just kidding….)
I don’t agree that a lower BAC limit necessarily puts bars out of business. They already should be watching to be sure they don’t over-serve customers (as happened with the drunk driver who killed my brother).
The Dram shop act is no more onerous at the lower rate than it was before; and unless the bartenders want to start checking BAC before they serve a second or third drink, we unfortunately have to rely on the vagaries of individual judgement.
Adequate public transportation makes it more reasonable that someone who is not with others where there is an arranged designated driver has better options than driving. It is certainly not the only way to be responsible, but it is one that makes it easier for more people to be so; and it has additional public benefits as well. A ‘two-fer’.
The one phrase which still makes me cringe inwardly, “I really need a drink” for ‘X’ reason. Odds are if you think you NEED a drink to handle whatever situation or problems are facing you, it may not be the best time to have one, because there is an inherent pressure to have more than one.
My two cents worth, I think it is a good idea for kids growing up to have small doses of supervised alcohol when they are old enough – a half glass of wine, or a full glass of wine diluted with water at special dinners where it is served to adults, that sort of thing. The idea being that it takes the ‘forbidden’/mystery quality out of drinking, and gives kids a chance to learn what alcohol feels like, under supervision.
It’s perhaps not so surprising tha number of people who don’t seem to recognize their own reactions to alcohol. Perhaps at least some of them have never tried to quantify the experience. Maybe bars should consider having some kind of device where people can check their own BAC levels voluntarily, and privately – instead of guessing? Just a thought, but to the degree we hold people responsible for their level of consumption, it makes a certain sense to provide them the means to evaluate it….
January 20th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Soliah – Cops don’t make the laws. And the money-making conspiracy is a good one. I bet the judges get a kick-back too. And then the cops, judges, lawyers, bail-bondsmen and yuppies all get together for high-end scotch and cigars to laugh at the scam they pulled.
Can you get me into that deal, please?
January 21st, 2010 at 2:53 am
DiscordianStooj, the “yuppie” isn’t in on the “scam”. The “yuppie” (easier to say that “High Quality arrestee) does get off but pays a lot. The judge doesn’t need to do anything but give continuances. No direct “quid pro quo”. The cop gets fed money overtime for the time spent going to trial to testify when a continuance is granted. No direct money exchange, no stated quid pro quo, more like a “treasure hunt” for the parties involved.
The first “High Q” case was in a large Texas city. A police woman there quit the force, she claimed because of corruption. She did some “dancing” afterwards and eventually some x-rated movie.
Feds tried a “squeeze play” on her, weak obscenity and mostly tax evasion to try to get her to “sing” on the strip club circuit that headlines X-rated “actresses”.
She didn’t have anything there but told the feds she used to be a cop and about the “High Q”. It took cops a while to comprehend it and set up a sting but the feds did.
Two elements were the .08 BAC and the targeted fed grants for cops for DUI enforcement.