DUI Defender

In an on-going effort to highlight the statistical ineptitude that drives MADD (Mother’s Against Drunk Driving) and other groups leading the charge to enact legislation curtailing our civil liberties, I present part 1 of my series, “how to lie with statistics.” These groups are leading the fight for legislation that will, at some point in the not to distant future, allow law enforcement to stop, at random, any citizen driving, for any reason. Remove these otherwise law abiding citizens from their car, force them to blow into some sort of alcohol measuring device before being allowed to continue on their way. It may seem drastic but that’s where we are heading, the “war” on DUI has resulted in the suspension of many of our basic civil rights and Constitutional protections and it seems that the proponents of “tougher” drunk driving laws won’t stop until there are no constitutional protections for everyday drivers. While is would be wrong for me to say I favor drunk driving (and, for the record, I do not), it is safe to say that I do not support MADD’s methods. However, in the battle that has thus far taken place, it seems that anyone standing in the way, or arguing against the mad mothers, must therefore support drunk driving.

In an article written recently, Ron De Young, brilliantly analyzed the statistics cited by MADD and NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) to reach the conclusion that we are actually safer drink and drive and not wear our safety belts than we are to be sober and seat belted into our cars. While this proposition may seem ludicrous, the author actually took the statistics cited by MADD and NHTSA to perpetuate their war on our civil liberties, and turned them into a statistical argument that we are actually safer when we are drunk driving. That simple fact being a corollary of the statistic that 61% of all traffic fatalities occur in accidents with sober people. Mr. De Young goes on to pick apart the actual statistics, challenging the fact that someone in every alcohol related fatal accident must have a blood alcohol concentration of at least .01 (the legal limit in every state is .08, with few exceptions) and doesn’t necessarily require that the driver in any alcohol related fatality be the one with the alcohol measurement. Further, at least 12% of the “fatal accidents” involve drunken bicyclists or pedestrians (in other words, sober drivers hit drunk non-motorists).

The purpose of this series of articles is not to promote drunk driving but to try to be a sober voice in the on-going hysteria surrounding drunk driving and the efforts of some groups to use statistical analysis to spread their message and impact legislation that erodes the civil liberties we all hold dear… or at least our Founding Fathers did.

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