On Drunk Driving Deaths
Clyde Haberman raises a good point in today’s New York Times: Why does Plaxico Burress potentially face years for illegally possessing a dangerous weapon (even if chances are slim he’d do that time), while Staten Island Congressman Vito Fossella got just a few days for illegally driving a dangerous weapon?
He writes: “But cars kill, too, especially when a drunk is at the wheel. About 13,000 Americans are killed every year by what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration calls “alcohol-impaired drivers.”
The second sentence raises a point that may seem semantic but is, I think, important. The majority of people who die in alcohol-related crashes in the U.S. do so in what are known as single-vehicle crashes. So it seems imprecise to say they are “killed by” an impaired driver, when they are in fact the driver. A number of these fatalities will, of course, be passengers; strictly speaking, they are victims (although often complicit) of a drunk driver. But even so we can hardly conclude that 13,000 people a year are killed by drunk drivers, unless we imagine the impaired driver as a kind of separate self. But this phrase crops up all the time in the news.
My problem with this usage, apart from its strict factual and semantic inaccuracy, is that it subtly shifts the risks that impaired driving brings away from the individual, and onto some unknown “other” driver, which may in its own way contribute to the behavior. This is not to say that drunk drivers do not exact a huge and terrible toll on people in other vehicles (and outside of the vehicle). But, statistically speaking, the greatest risk drunk driving poses is to the actual driver himself (and any passengers). It may sound more dramatic to imply that there were 13,000 sober people in traffic who were killed by drunk drivers, but it doesn’t really help get us any closer to the root of the problem — the driver with the key in his hand, his own greatest risk.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 8:59 am and is filed under Risk, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 9th, 2008 at 11:48 am
“But, statistically speaking, the greatest risk drunk driving poses is to the actual driver himself” and the greatest risk gun ownership poses is to the gun owner. The leading cause of firearm deaths is suicide.
The big difference is probably that you can’t get to work using a shotgun, or drive someone to hospital with a Glock.
December 9th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Thank you for a level headed perspective. This subject is usually surruonded by a frenzy of emotion, not necessarily logic. Basic civil liberties are being slowly stripped away, in response to huge ad campaigns driven by a gut wrenching story. I’m getting tired of the small interest changing the civil liberties for all. As the laws have gotten tougher, many statistics are still rending up – clearly we need more laws and media spin (not).
December 10th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Dunk driving needs to stop. Alcohol related crashes are the leading cause of
death between the ages 16-24 years. 5,555 younger than 15yrs die.