Drunk Driving and Other Statistics Show That We Love To Hate Drunks!

Why do people love to single out certain groups of people and make their lives hell? I am not sure, but I can say that drunks are sure easy to pick on. (video below)

MADD used to have on their site a statistic of less than 7% of all car accidents "involved" drunk drivers. They have completely removed this statistic from the site because people quickly understood that this statistic really says that at least 93% of all accidents are caused by (not just involving) SOBER DRIVERS! If you want to pick on drunks, using a statistic that makes sober driving look bad is not the way to go.

The real question to me is "which drivers CAUSED the accidents?"

These driving statistics involve two or more cars, and two or more drivers, so let's clarify these numbers. 100% is everyone and If only 7% INVOLVED drunk drivers, that means that 93% were CAUSED BY SOBER DRIVERS - Yikes! Let's also think about how many of the remaining 7%, which probably INVOLVED sober drivers too. This means that probably 100% of the fatal accidents INVOLVED SOBER DRIVERS! I don't drink and drive, but I don't like these odds....

People tend to get pissed off at one person (like a drunk), classify that person into a group of people (drunks), and then share their hate for the entire group with others. It's not just the drunks. I can imagine them saying, "I hate old drivers!" or "I hate young drivers." People love to share their hate it seems... Actually, young people get in the most driving accidents, drunk or sober. Maybe a bunch of angry people will get together and start a site about young drivers. It's ridiculous to me. You have probably seen this behavior too, eh!

Even if there is malicious intent by a driver that has injured someone, anger against everyone in their same age group or ethnicity is unjustified. Imagine someone thinking one of these things - "He was old, she was young, he was distracted, she was drunk" - and then hating everyone in that group like "I hate all drunks" - this is simply prejudice in action. Hey, Jesus loves drunks... water to wine and such... Why can't we?

Also, don't think you know the facts until you actually review the NHTSA accident statistics yourself. They reveal something completely different than is currently being reported by most websites. Here are the real statistics for 2008.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811161.PDF

See the chart on Page 3 for the age break down. You can also clearly see that the real numbers for drunk drivers involved in fatal car accidents is 22%. MADD.org references this exact same information and states that 31.6 percent of the total traffic fatalities in 2008 died in drunk driving crashes. I know these mothers are mad, but give these poor drunks a break - MADD is blaming drunks for 11% of the deaths caused by sober drivers.

I don't know if you study any history, but this angry "punish the drunk" attitude is what brought on prohibition from 1920 to 1933 - the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for consumption were banned nationally as mandated in the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The KKK was for it (CLICK HERE for the WikiPedia article and poster from the Guardians of Liberty). Maybe if they would have lightened up with a few beers, they wouldn't have earned such a bad rap today. See the video below - imagine these drunks as KKK guys - they can't even see, so they can't have any issue with color!

Our History Of Persecuting Drunks!

Another interesting fact is that most of the Women's Christian Temperance Union that brought us prohibition were using products that had cocaine as the featured ingredient. Cocaine was legal at the time and although they felt that cocaine was good, they decided to punish the drinkers! Those poor drunks! Sure we don't want them behind the wheel, but maybe money would be better spent on getting them safely home instead of punishing them.

Did you know that using a cell phone while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. I found some more 2008 stats on Distraction.GOV that show 16% of all car fatalities involved driver distraction like tuning the radio or talking on a cell phone. I guess MADD could work for this too - Mothers Against Distracted Drivers. Hey, the stats are fairly close and the acronym works. Why are they just picking on those poor drunks when there are so many more distracted and sober drivers out there killing people? I guess drunks are easier to pick on.

Its sad when I see such an accepted prejudice against the drunks. In 2004, the governor of VA created a 5 day mandatory jail sentence for first time drunk driving offenders, and then he opened the liquor stores on Sundays. I had to think about it for a while - it seemed like he was exploiting the drunks at first, but then it kind of made sense. I guess he was thinking they could drink at home instead of being forced to drive out, get drunk and then drive home on Sundays. Northern VA made international news that year when the police were found going into bars, talking drunks into coming outside, and then arresting them for being drunk in public. Do we hate drunks or what?

I am just venting on my disgust at all this prejudice, but let's end this with a video that shows the real reason we pick on drunks - this video is worth a million words!