45BB/100 followed by a trip to jail!

[imitation]

Spamuell no one claimed it was right to do, simply that people tend to overplay the severity of drink driving while they've probably driven in a state comparable to drink driving themselves.

Are hands free kits banned on mobile phones in UK they aren't in Australia yet the last testing I see reported indicated that hands free and using a phone with your hand was the same risk.

Even people who don't drink and drive and go to parties and driving their friends home late at night(4-5) the next day say) are probably driving in an impaired state. Should we call them out as well???

[surfdoc]

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Bliiip try again surfdoc your post is the one that's wrong. Josh is trying to quantify his impaired driving skills when drinking at or slightly above the legal limit with increased attention and focus. Doesn't this neccesarily imply that his driving skills would be at a level below those of a normally careless drink driver or perhaps the averaged drink driving skill level given that government agencies no doubt combine drinking effects on ones motor skills as well as probably bumping up the effect some by assuming drivers are arrogant, over zealous etc.

So many pots calling the kettle black here.

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yeah the point was that instead of driving 90 in a 55 or 60 in a 35 like i usually would, i'd be driving 5 mph over. driving that fast can hinder someone's reaction time more than driving .01 above the legal limit

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Fair enough. I think are taliking about different things. I made no comparison to talking on the cell phone, driving tired or in other impaired states. I am simply talking about driving completely sober and cautiously versus driving at 100 mg/dl and driving cautiously. I also was not name calling or being overly judgemental toward the OP. We all make mistakes.

mmcd, I am not sure what you mean by MADD propoganda. It is painfully obvious that the 100mg/dl drunk is not as dangerous as the 300mg/dl drunk. That is clearly not the point.

[silkyslim]

uh dont drive drunk assclown

[mmcd]

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mmcd, I am not sure what you mean by MADD propoganda. It is painfully obvious that the 100mg/dl drunk is not as dangerous as the 300mg/dl drunk. That is clearly not the point.

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What I'm saying is that the effect of alcohol upon driving ability is fairly negligable at .08. People who try to make it sound like someone who drives at .08 is out there playing Russian roulette with other peoples lives are misguided.

BTW, I'm stone sober right now, but I've been up ~24 hours. If I drive down the street to get cigarettes in a little while, are you guys going to jump all over me? I guarantee I'm more "impaired" now than I am when I have a BAC of .08...but I'm probably not more "impaired" than your average well-rested, sober 17 or 71 year old driver.

[Clayton]

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i made a long post saying pretty much the same thing, but i'm a pussy so i deleted it. but the cliff notes version was: clayton, you are a judgmental douchebag and are the type of person that I detest. everyone makes mistakes and he was probably borderline DWI. it's not like he was wasted

it's also possible that some people drive more carefully when they are slightly drunk for fear of getting pulled over. i know this is true in my case. there have been two instances in my life where i might or might not have been over the legal limit but the fear that i might have been kept me driving <5 mph over the speed limit, whereas i drive like an idiot when i'm sober. but i guess by clayton's logic, those 2 instances make me worthy of death and everyone who seems me should spit on me. just some food for thought

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First off cheesewhiz, I never wished death on anyone. That's stupid. Do yourself a favor and read through my posts again before making such irrational claims.

Second off, I will proudly admit to being a judgemental douchebag towards any assclown who thinks they can competently drive on a borderline DWI.

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The relative risk of being killed in a single-vehicle crash is 11 times greater at BACs between 0.05 and 0.09 percent than at a BAC of 0.0 percent (no alcohol). (Zador, 1991)

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0.08 percent BAC is a level at which all drivers, even experienced ones, are impaired with respect to critical driving skills. (NHTSA, 1997)

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[mmcd]

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The larger problem, however, is the fact that since 2000, the federal government has mandated a blanket .08 legal threshold for the entire country. We've now had five years of data to measure the effectiveness of the .08 standard, and the data strongly suggest that not only is the standard too low, but the resources we're expending to enforce it may actually be making our roadways more dangerous. Here's how:

When President Clinton signed the .08 law in 2000, every state was forced to either comply with the law or give up millions of dollars in federal highway money. Critics at the time pointed to numerous studies showing that motorists aren't significantly impaired at .08, and that in fact, most drunk driving fatalities occur at .15 or higher. Lowering the national standard from .10 to .08, then, was a bit like lowering the speed limit from 55 to 50 to catch motorists who zip along at 100 miles per hour.

In 1992, the Supreme Court gave its consent to random sobriety checkpoint roadblocks, despite conceding that they are probably a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist ruled that the threat to highway safety posed by drunk driving justifies suspending our constitutional protection from illegal search and seizure, as well as our Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Drunk driving activists seized on the ruling and moved to employ roadblocks all over the country.

Critics of roadblocks and .08 predicted that (1) the lower standard would actually cause an increase in drunk driving deaths, as scarce law enforcement resources are diverted toward motorists who don't pose a real threat to highway safety and away from the "hardcore" drunks that do; and (2) these roadblocks will be set up under the guise of drunk driving, but will in effect become little more than revenue generators, as police use them to issue citations for any number of less serious infractions.

Both predictions have proven true. From 2000 to 2003, drunk-driving deaths began to inch upward again, after two decades of decline. In March of this year, the National Transportation Safety Board conceded as much in a newsletter, warning that, "Americans are more aware than ever before of the dangers of drinking and driving. Few realize, however, that drunk driving fatalities continue to rise -- and that thousands of them are caused by extreme or repeat offenders known as 'hard core drinking drivers.'"

The release noted that these hardcore offenders produce 40 percent of traffic accidents, but comprise just 33 percent of arrests. If we look at fatalities, the numbers are worse: People with a blood alcohol content (BAC) above .10 account for 77 percent of alcohol-related fatalities (the average drunk driving fatality involves a BAC of .17). In other words, motorists with very high blood alcohol levels account for an increasing percentage of highway fatalities, but a decreasing percentage of arrests. Of course, the federal government still doesn't get it. The top bullet point in the NTSB's press release's action agenda was to install yet more "frequent and statewide sobriety checkpoints."

Last year the number of alcohol-related fatalities went down a bit. But deaths actually increased in states that use roadblocks. The overall drop came almost entirely from the handful of states that don't use roadblocks. Roadblocks are designed to catch motorists who aren't driving erratically enough to be caught by conventional means -- and consequently, aren't as much of a threat. Given that the sites are generally well-publicized, hardcore drinkers know to avoid them.

Roadblocks have also turned into naked money-generators. A study of five Sacramento roadblocks found 22 suspected DUI arrests, but 315 citations and 215 vehicle confiscations for unrelated offenses. A newspaper account of a North Carolina roadblock reported 45 non-DWI offenses and just 3 suspected DWIs. A study of a recent San Diego roadblock found 1,169 stops, 27 citations, 10 vehicles impounded -- and one DUI arrest. Here in D.C., police have been criticized for keeping a database of personal information collected from all motorists stopped at roadblocks -- even those accused of no infraction at all. Many police departments have grown so frustrated with the process that they've given up roadblocks altogether, as well as the federal funding that comes with them.

The D.C. Council was wise to scrap zero tolerance. And given the control Congress exerts over the District and the millions in federal dollars attached to it, it's probably unreasonable for the council to scrap its .08 standard, too. But even the Schwartz bill gives police officers discretion to arrest motorists between .05 and .079, a level of impairment studies show to be lower than having kids in the backseat. The council should correct this error.

In the larger picture, Congress should revisit its blanket .08 standard. The evidence so far suggests that the lower threshold is not only targeting motorists who aren't significantly impaired, it may well be making our roads more dangerous.



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[mmcd]

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A low blood alcohol content (BAC) led to a slight improvement in driving skills by experimental subjects, according to researchers at Yale University.

Research participants tried to “drive” safely using a driving simulator. Their driving skills were tested with no blood alcohol content, at .04 BAC, at .08 (the legal limit for driving), and at .10.

Although there was a slight improvement in driving ability at the lowest BAC level (.04), abilities decreased as BAC increased above that level. The investigators speculate that, at the lower BAC level, people were aware that they were mildly impaired and compensated for the effects of the alcohol by trying harder to be “good drivers.”



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[mmcd]

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The Partnership is deeply troubled to learn of a remark made recently by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to a major newspaper regarding efforts to deter distracted and drowsy driving.

MADD President Wendy Hamilton was quoted in the December 30, 2002 issue of The Los Angeles Times as saying: "We don't want cell phones and drowsy driving to become the next hot-button issue for the country, because they don't even compare with the problem of drunk driving."

Let's examine the claim. During the year 2001, the government estimates that 17,448 - or 41 percent - of the deaths on our nation's highways were "alcohol-related." In addition, approximately 275,000 - or 16 percent - of the injuries were attributed to alcohol. Since the rate of fatalities is so high, and so much higher than the rate of injuries, let's take a closer look at that statistic.

Of the 17,448 fatalities, 2,555 occurred in crashes where alcohol was detected but no one was over the legal limit. In these crashes, alcohol may not have been the primary factor in the crash; speed, distraction or fatigue could have been.

That leaves 14,893 deaths that can actually be attributed to alcohol. However, of these, 1,770 were intoxicated pedestrians and cyclists who walked out in front of the vehicles of sober drivers. They had nothing to do with drunk driving. The Partnership questions why these deaths were thrown in with what is normally presented as a drunk driving statistic.

That leaves 13,123 deaths that can be attributed to intoxicated drivers. Of these, a staggering 8,308 were intoxicated drivers who killed themselves in crashes.

That leaves 4,815 deaths in which intoxicated drivers killed someone other than themselves. Of these, 2,646 were passengers in the vehicle with the intoxicated driver. Conceivably some of these passengers were children who had no choice but to ride with the intoxicated motorist, but the vast majority were adults who did have a choice in the matter and therefore cannot truly be counted as innocent victims of drunk driving. The remaining 2,169 were pedestrians, cyclists or occupants of another vehicle that was struck by an intoxicated motorist. These were innocent victims of drunk driving since they presumably had little or no opportunity to avoid the driver.

Risk to Others vs. Risk to Self

All road fatalities are senseless and tragic, but when examining risk it is important to distinguish between people who place themselves in harm's way and those who place others in harm's way. The Partnership believes that public policy must concentrate first on protecting innocent people from the dangerous choices made by others, and then on protecting people from their own poor choices.

These data suggest that while drunk driving brings harm to many innocent people, the risk of being killed by a drunk driver is exaggerated because some fatalities lumped into the "alcohol-related" category by the government do not truly belong there and the vast majority of the rest consist of drunk drivers who kill themselves and/or their own passengers.

But why do so many intoxicated drivers kill themselves and their passengers without killing anyone outside their own vehicle? One reason may be that, thanks largely to MADD's success in making drinking and driving socially unacceptable, alcohol-related crashes are now heavily concentrated during only the late-night hours when relatively few other people are on the road. According to NHTSA, the rate of alcohol involvement in fatal crashes is, in fact, more than three times as high at night as during the day. At such times, intoxicated motorists may be more likely to drive at very high speeds and wrap their cars around a telephone pole than to hit another vehicle.

In addition, alcohol-impaired drivers appear to be far less likely to wear seatbelts than other drivers, even those who engage in other dangerous behaviors like talking on cell phones and driving drowsy. Wearing seatbelts cuts the risk of death in half, although many people who survive still suffer serious injuries. According to NHTSA, in 2001 seatbelts were used by only 23 percent of fatally injured intoxicated drivers, compared with 53 of fatally injured sober drivers and 75 percent of all motorists. Passengers of intoxicated drivers may also be less likely than average to wear seatbelts, although the data are not clear on this.

Because of confounding variables that lead intoxicated motorists and their passengers to figure disproportionately in the fatality rate, it might actually prove more useful to compare injuries across different categories of dangerous driving. As stated previously, the government estimates that 275,000 people were injured during 2001 in crashes where alcohol was present. Breakdowns of exactly how much alcohol was involved and who was injured are harder to come by, so let's assume for the sake of argument that all of these crashes involved a motorist who was over the legal limit and that all of those who were injured were innocent victims of someone else's drunkenness.

Risk from Cell Phone Use

Now, how does this compare to fatalities and injuries caused by someone talking on a cell phone? The government makes much less effort to gather reliable data on cell phones. Most crash reports, for example, still do not contain a box for police officers to check when a cell phone is suspected as a factor in the crash. And to our knowledge no states in the U.S. are obtaining the cell phone records of motorists involved in fatal crashes to see whether they were on the phone when the crash occurred. Thus, police must rely on confessions from motorists, testimony from witnesses, or their own suspicions in determining whether cell phones were involved. Imagine if drunk driving were determined in this manner.

The net effect is likely to be a vast underreporting of cell phone use as a factor in crashes. However, for the sake of comparison, here's what we were able to find. To date, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis has provided the only nationwide estimates of cell phone involvement in fatal and injury-producing crashes. Researchers there report that cell phones are now a factor in approximately 2,600 fatalities annually and 330,000 moderate to critical injuries. But because the data on cell phone use by motorists are still limited, the range of uncertainty is wide. Researchers say that the range for fatalities is 800 to 8,000 annually, and the range for injuries is 100,000 to one million annually.

Trying to determine how many of the fatalities involve the cell phone users themselves and/or their passengers and how many involve someone outside the cell phone user's vehicle is an even bigger guessing game. However, this much is certain. Unlike crashes that involve alcohol, crashes that involve cell phone use are not concentrated during the late night hours; they're happening all day long and exposing everyone to risk. In addition, there is reason to believe that cell phone talkers are buckling up to a far greater extent than drunk drivers and thus are not as likely to be overrepresented in the fatality rate.

In summary, then, it appears that the fatality rate for innocent victims of cell phone-talking motorists might be comparable to or even higher than the fatality rate for innocent victims of intoxicated motorists. And the injury rate from cell phone use while driving might be comparable to or even considerably higher than the injury rate from intoxicated driving.

Drowsy Driving/Fatigue

Drowsy driving refers to motorists who are at high risk of falling asleep at the wheel. Fatigued driving refers to motorists who have driven long hours without rest and, though they may not be nodding off at the wheel, are severely compromised in their ability to react to sudden events on the road.

As with cell phone use, the influence of drowsy driving and fatigue on crashes often is not known unless the driver survives the crash and admits to having nodded off. Unlike both alcohol involvement and cell phone use, there is no scientific method even available for determining its presence. In addition, the U.S. currently has no standardized criteria for making the determination of drowsy driving in a crash, and most states offer little or no formal training to police for identifying drowsiness as a factor in crashes. Also, according to the National Sleep Foundation, six states (Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin) still do not have a code for drowsy driving on their crash reports.

That said, the government estimates conservatively that 1,500 peopled are killed annually as a result of motorists who fall asleep at the wheel, and another 71,000 are injured annually in such crashes. However, the National Sleep Foundation believes that drowsy driving and fatigue often play a role in crashes that are attributed to other causes. For example, the government lists driver inattention as the primary cause of approximately one million police-reported crashes each year. The sleep foundation points out that drowsy driving and fatigue make such lapses of attention more likely. These lapses can occur at any time of the day or night, but appear to be most prevalent at night, during the early morning, and in mid-afternoon.

In a 1999 poll conducted by the foundation, 62 percent of all adults who were surveyed reported having driven a vehicle while feeling drowsy sometime during the prior year. Twenty-seven percent reported that they had, at some time, dozed off while driving. Twenty-three percent stated that they knew someone who had crashed after falling asleep at the wheel during the past year.

Taken together, it is clear from these statistics that, like cell phone use, drowsy driving is a very serious problem in urgent need of policies and programs to reduce the risk.





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[Clayton]

im playing the sundays, this is kinda a tl:dr

[tom10167]

For what it's worth I'm a judgemental [censored] 100% of the time about everything, I was just giving this "nice" thing a shot, apparently my timing sucks.