Drinking and Driving Statistics

Dui Statistics

Unfortunately, in most cases, the dui statistics simply don't fit the crime. Increasingly, DUI offenses have become politicized crimes that only serve to embarrass you and your pocket book. While it is important to note that most DUI laws are absolutely necessary, and alcohol (when consumed in large quantities) does impair your driving abilities, it is also essential that you understand lots of government agencies question the crackdown on DUI offenses and the increasingly low blood alcohol content limit because of the work of interest groups like MADD

At the very heart of this issue are these dui statistics. Interest groups use these numbers to convince legislatures that laws need to be changed and penalties need to be increased. Regrettably, the collection of these statistics is tainted. In the years before DUI consequences became as serious as they are today, most dui statistics that were kept on deaths in traffic accidents had a category that kept records of those deaths that were directly caused by alcohol. As the laws began to change, so did the title of that category. It moved from "caused" to "related." Suddenly if a traffic accident occurred where the injured (instead of the driver) was impaired, the dui statistic was filed under that category. If testing after an accident on all parties shows any alcohol content at all, it is filed under an alcohol-related accident.

In 2002, the Los Angeles Times carefully examined the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's claim that eighteen thousand people were killed as a direct result of drinking and driving. The result of their investigation, though, was that only three to five thousand of those deaths were actually caused by a drunk driver.

Even the federal General Accounting Office has suggested that the dui statistics are not convincing enough to suggest lower blood alcohol limits are doing anything but restricting constitutional freedoms. Unfortunately, the drum beat toward a dry society and dry highways continues loudly from interest groups like MADD who want to ensure that you no longer have the right to drink.

With the focus continuing to shift toward any presence of alcohol in your blood at all, it's a sure bet that DUI offenses will become more of a problem in the future.