Americans Are Still Way Too Tolerant of Drunken Driving

The Washington Post

More people are dying on the nation’s roads these days because the economy is going gangbusters and gasoline is cheap.

That’s the line Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and his staff have been pushing especially hard, as new statistics show the death toll on the nation’s highways has been increasing.

Of course, it’s indisputable, too: People are driving more these days, and the more you drive, the more likely you are to have an accident.

But the Transportation Department has focused only on the upside of the downside here.

Maybe it’s a coincidence that this is an election year, but there are other reasons people are getting killed and maimed that don’t have anything to do with the rosy economy and $2 gas.

One is sky’s-the-limit speeding on the nation’s highways. Another is distracted driving, now that only the friendless aren’t talking or texting as they drive. And then there’s booze.

What they have in common is that only government action is going to change them.

The National Safety Council (NSC) and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) both say that the United States could do more to combat alcohol-related crashes. Despite some success lowering the percentage of alcohol-related highway deaths to 29.2 percent of all traffic fatalities, that still means that 10,265 people were killed in 2015. That’s a 3.2 percent increase over 2014. It’s still almost a third of all traffic deaths.

“When you look at the fatalities, it’s almost unbelievable that, as a country, we’re willing to let it continue to happen,” said Deborah A.P. Hersman, president and chief executive of the NSC. A few decades ago, about half of all traffic fatalities were alcohol-related, she said. Efforts to combat drunken driving have lowered that to about 30 percent. But then progress slowed, and that rate has persisted for years, Hersman said.

One step forward would be universal laws requiring all offenders arrested for driving under the influence to have an interlock device installed on their vehicle. Interlock devices require a person to blow into a device, similar to a Breathalyzer, that determines whether there’s alcohol in the person’s system. If the person has been drinking, the device prevents the vehicle from starting.

“There’s a mountain of data now that show interlock laws work,” J.T. Griffin, chief government affairs officer at MADD, said Tuesday.

All 50 states, along with the District of Columbia, have some form of law on interlock devices, according to MADD and the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Since West Virginia’s law was enacted in 2008, drunken driving deaths there have plummeted by 50 percent, MADD says. Other states have reported dramatic results, too.

But many impose the measure only on repeat offenders or on offenders who had high levels of alcohol in their blood. Only 23 have laws that require all offenders to use them, the NCSL says.

Read more of the original article at The Washington Post

The post Americans Are Still Way Too Tolerant of Drunken Driving appeared first on Fleet Management Weekly.

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