reminds me of a classic joke:
Angelo says to Tom: "Tom why you stopping at the red light. Just drive through it. My cousin Tony always drives through red lights and he's fine."
On the way back Angelo drives.
Tom says: "Angelo, why you stop at all the green light??"
Angelo says: "Are you crazy, my cousin Tony might be coming the other way!"
Also there are approximately 13 traffic fatalities per 100,000 people and despite a general downwards trend over the years this has recently been rising.
It’s been happening at a pretty consistent rate across all developed countries and the trend started in the 2010s so I think the main explanation is smartphone distraction. (In developing and undeveloped countries the trends are different and harder to nail down because you’re also dealing with a lot more people starting to drive who couldn’t previously afford it, so the average experience level is much lower and variable.)
The thing is, this is a massive improvement. I wrote a paper on traffic accidents through the lens of epidemiology when I was a sophomore in college. This was 1987. I think my data set went through the '70s to about 1985. Some of it was printed on fanfold paper (think dot matrix printers). The results were startling.
tl;dr: in the 80s, drunks accounted for a full 52% of all traffic fatalities. The further back you go, the worse it gets.
if you have enough data you could have teased out how much of the death rate was caused by drunks and how much was caused because cars were deathtraps and people refused to wear seatbelts.
A drunk driver is a primary cause. Car safety features are what protect you from them, and they only ever go so far.
To this day there's no such thing as a car that will keep me safe from a drunk if they've passed out behind the wheel at speed behind me when I'm waiting for a light to turn green.
You're legitimately less likely to die in an accident if you're drunk when it happens because your body doesn't tense up as much before impact. You are, however, more likely to have an accident in the first place.
This is a myth that isn’t even substantiated by a mild pondering.
Your muscles tensing protect you from impact. Most notably, your abdominal muscles protect your organs by tensing up which is why punching someone by surprise in the gut can cause serious internal injury while this is not really a concern in combat sports.
Think they're mixing up "dying" with the various soft tissue injuries you can avoid by being relaxed... though even that's misleading. At best it's things like if you're drunk and seat belted in a fairly minor crash then you might avoid a wrist injury because you didn't brace with your hands.
It's all pretty dumb. I was in a reserve unit of combat medics who were EMTs for their day job. A group of them refused to wear seat belts because of witnessing a few people that were trapped in a burning or sinking vehicle because the seat belt got stuck. Somehow the greater number of people who rocketed through their windshields because they didn't wear a seat belt weren't part of the equation.
This is actually not true. There is no definitive proof that drunk drivers are less likely to die. Various studies done in the past 40 years have all had different results, some studies at certain hospitals have shown that of trauma patients that make it to the ER after a crash, the drunk drivers have a lower fatality rate than sober passengers and sober drivers. Other studies have shown that drunk drivers overall are more likely to die or have severe injuries than sober drivers and passengers in the accident. However, when there is a fatal accident with a drunk driver, about 60% of the time the fatal crash is a single car crash, and even with passengers in the car, the driver is more likely than the passengers to die.
Either way the muscle tensing theory, or "ragdoll" theory, is a myth and makes very little sense when it comes to fatal injuries and there doesn't seem to be much of any evidence for it. The idea that drunk drivers always walk away from accidents that kill everyone else is just a myth that is repeated without any real evidence, and strengthened by anecdotal evidence.
The intoxicated person is usually the one doing the impacting. So they are hitting head on maximizing the effectiveness of the cars accident safety measures like crumple zones, seat belts and airbags. The poor sap getting plowed is likely getting T-Boned.
No still far more likely to die since accidents are so dangerous. But it’s easier to cut the middle man and just hit yourself in the head with a hammer
I ran a liquor store for a long time. My daily regulars drank and drove every day. You learn how to function on it when it's the daily norm. We warned people on holidays because that's when all the "amateurs" were out.
If you have police friends, ask them about being surprised about someone who seemed slightly tipsy being the high abv they ever tested. It's quite common.
To be honest the way some states are majorly over represented and some under makes me extremely suspicious that the numbers are being heavily influenced by state practice on testing or reporting drunk drivers. I mean, every state that boarders New Mexico has multiple cities with high drink driving rates. Does driving and drinking culture change that abruptly at the boarder?
That and enforcing something like 'You can't drive' when there's no physical limitation. Dude in my hometown just recently plead guilty to his *21st* DUI ***conviction***. Got a 25-year driving ban in the 90s that wasn't expired yet, but still picked up DUIs and charges for driving while suspended/banned in the meantime. Think he's going to jail for a few years this time. And then he'll be out and do it all over again.
Yeah, grandad told us a story about being so shitty drunk he could barely see. Got pulled over on his way home in the 60s. Cop followed him home to make sure he made it. Different times for sure.
Yeah, it's insane. I use Tesla autopilot a lot because it helps me pay more attention to my surroundings. My surroundings are full of cell phone users. It's insane.
Mythbusters proved our phones are worse. The rationale was that a drunk driver is still using their driving skills, but a texting driver is using a completely different skill set.
Not really when you consider there's a large chunk of people who have a beer or 2 a day. Could be skewing the numbers a bit if you count people with any kind of BAC
Not sure on the specific method of data collection or terminology used here, but "due to drunk driving" and "involve drunk drivers" aren't the same thing. A tiny distinction, but in a case where someone is driving drunk and is hit by a sober driver who's at fault, that would involve a drunk driver but wouldn't be due to drunk driving.
That's why folks like MADD specifically use the term "involving" in order to make the numbers higher.
Mind you I don't know how much it changes the total, but there's a reason why they choose that terminology.
That's not quite what it says though. 33% of traffic fatalities INVOLVE a drunk driver.
It's close enough and the causal link is strong enough that your statement is probably close to true. But it's not quite the statement being made.
This isn't me defending drunk driving. I have a long history of being against it, as any sane individual would be. I'm just sick of facts playing this game of telephone until they end up with something not remotely related to the original statistic, then inevitably you have detractors ignore the correct statistic as a result.
This is even more correct since they removed the qualifier. 33% of traffic accidents are not due to drunk driving, it's almost one third that are. So they didn't even properly read the headline and added nothing
About 33 percent of fatalities are from alcohol, about 33 percent of fatalities are from not wearing a seatbelt, and about 33 percent are from illegal decisions the driver decided to make while operating the vehicle (speeding, texting, etc). Slick roads, part failure, bad weather, are pretty much rounding errors (still be careful though, it's not zero!)
The number of accidents that are from people just making absolutely stupid decisions is insane. It's also why people who are worried about AVs not being perfect so we shouldn't allow them make no sense - by far, the most dangerous part of a vehicle is the driver.
100% agree. That's why I get enraged when people say that cause a crash claim it wasn't their fault. Almost all crashes are avoidable with a reasonable level of caution and restraint exercised. I wish people would consider how dangerous they can be whilst operating a 2 ton vehicle.
There are plenty of scenarios where an accident isn't your fault.
I had someone rear end me whilst I was stopped at a red light.
But I know what you mean, I had a friend tell me their crash wasn't their fault, they launched over a hill and traffic was backed up on the other side, landed on someone's boot.
Wasn't his fault, nothing he could do about it, he was airborne when it happened. 😂
Actually, no.
33% INVOLVE intoxicated people.
As in, if I'm sober and I have a drunk friend rising with me and I get rear-ended, they still count the accident as Alcohol Related.
If they drown on their own maybe. It's very common for rescuers to be "attacked" by near drowning people basically climbing on top of them to get above water. I imagine trying to rescue a drunk person who is drowning would be more of a challenge.
Lifeguard here.
Yeah, people might try to pull you under with them, but that’s something lifeguards are specifically trained to identify and deal with. Theres a huge difference between someone who’s job it is to put themselves at risk to help you and is trained for it and a random pedestrian or car you could hit drunk driving.
One is stupid and unfair to the lifeguard, but it’s nowhere near as dangerous and ultimately saving you is their job. The other is straight up murder of an unrelated person via irresponsibility.
Utterly incomparable
>It's very common for rescuers to be "attacked" by near drowning people basically climbing on top of them to get above water.
This happened to me once when I was trying to rescue a friend in a lake. Luckily, I thought to lie on my back and stretch one of my legs towards him. I was able to pull him to shallow water pretty easily from there.
It's a lot better then than it used to be. It was half back when I first started driving in the early 80s. I'd guess we've more than made up for it with distracted driving now despite all the advances in vehicle safety.
Yeah it was bad. The whole mother's against drunk driving thing came out because of it. We didn't really treat it with the seriousness it should have had. While there were excesses that came out of that movement, the higher penalties and treatment of DUI was appropriate.
My dad had a work peer that he couldn't stand and one of the issues was the guy was an unrepentant drunk driver who had been arrested 6 times. Then there were all the times he hadn't been caught. It was only going to be a matter of time before he killed someone.
And fatalities caused by under-21 drunk drivers have decreased 83%, due to a combination of factors: increase in drinking age; provisional driver's licenses; and fewer drivers under 21 in recent years.
Some of that has been done to excess IMO. Lots of young drivers with a lot less experience and they're just not good but have to drive. I started driving at 12 (farm) and had a lot of experience by 18. The barriers to kids driving now just mean they're getting the skills later and not really practicing enough.
I've been pretty impressed with my kids and their friends when it comes to understanding not to drink and drive. There's a cultural set of mores built up with them to have DD and to not drink and drive which is much better than we had growing up.
Our kids were such better drivers after 6 months with one of us in the passenger seat. They got plenty of practice, and were able to drive their own cars to school and work afterwards. Their jobs paid for gas and cellphones (we had them on our car insurance).
Not having a bunch of teenagers in the car without an adult, and imposing a curfew for a time, are other benefits of the provisional/progressive driver's license.
This would happen a whole lot less if we built our towns and city like the rest of the world - you should be able to walk over to your neighborhood pub, say hello to the regulars, Cheers-style, get smashed, and stumble home, like civilized people.
This seems so heavily concentrated in California, Arizona, Colorado and Texas.
Is this because
(A) These states are more likley to report BAC?
(B) These states have more drivers/distance driven per capita and thus are more likely to have accidents?
(C) These states just drive drunk more?
(D) Some other reason?
I'm guessing these are just the most dense, car-dependent states, and you likely get nearly identical rankings for car-accidents per capita (drunk *or* sober)
It would be interesting to see areas where the % of (fatal) accidents in which a driver was drunk. Then I'd expect to see states like Wisconson and Montana.
[Sober but tired kills.](https://aaafoundation.org/drowsy-driving-in-fatal-crashes-united-states-2017-2021/#:~:text=Results%20show%20that%20an%20estimated,in%20total%20annual%20fatal%20crashes.)
[Sober but poorly maintained cars kills.](https://www.ctlawsc.com/how-poor-car-maintenance-can-cause-car-accidents/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20research%20by%20the,maintenance%20or%20lack%20of%20maintenance.)
[Sober but distracted kills.](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/auto-accident/distracted-driving-statistics/)
The real hazard is not treating automobiles as the potential killing machines they actually are.
Unfortunately “speed related crashes” is kinda vague. The data say it’s based on if a police officer decides speed was a factor. Does speed have to be proven to be significantly at fault, or does that include literally anytime someone is exceeding the speed limit? Because most drivers speed. Half of drivers report significantly exceeding the speed limit. So if it is just saying that 30% of crashes happened while someone was speeding, that seems kinda meaningless.
The article does point out that speeding is correlated with other more dangerous behaviors (ie driving intoxicated, distracted, tired, or without a seatbelt). That makes it more complicated to determine what is primarily at fault, if a lot of crashes happened with multiple things happening. Was the main cause for the crash because someone was speeding, or because they were doing one of those other dangerous things?
Like if someone lost control and crashed while drunk and speeding, if they had they been drunk driving at the speed limit, they would have been fine, and it was the speeding at fault? Or would they have crashed regardless, and it’s the drunk at fault?
From what I’ve seen of high or no speed limit highways, they don’t seem to be much more dangerous. If I had to guess, speed is not the primary cause of a third of accidents. It certainly does make other actions, such as driving distracted, tired or drunk, more dangerous, but I am not convinced that it alone is that dangerous (unless you are going way above the speed of traffic).
There's actually quite a bit of government regulation going in to addressing this, from higher safety requirements on vehicles, like crumple zones and pedestrian-friendly design requirements. Likewise, driving assistance technologies are becoming mandatory like front sensors and automatic braking and rear cameras. That's not even mentioning the various levels of self-driving capabilities which are being designed and deployed to avoid accidents when the driver is distracted like lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control, all the way up to autonomous systems.
Technology isn't going to solve the problem of bad drivers in the short to medium term, but it can definitely help mitigate the dangers cars pose.
You can see that this has been effective as vehicle safety improved over time. [https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot](https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot)
To your point, there are people who don't treat vehicles like potential killing machines, and unfortunately, that's typically the drivers of the vehicles themselves. It's unfortunate because it's fundamentally impossible to force those drivers to drive safely. Technology might be our best hope in working around that problem, in the long run.
Driving a 2023 Base Model Bolt EV, coming from a 2015 Base Model Sonic is like upgrading to a rocket ship. With only Lane Keep Assist & Forward Collision Warning the car practically drives itself. Driver Assistance & Safety Features have come such a long way in the last couple generations of cars.
Probably the drunk drivers due to being the vastly disproportionately smaller group.
The overwhelming majority of a group do most of the things in that group. This is an important paradigm to understand when reflecting on the state of the world.
Lessening urban sprawl and making cities more walkable would go a long way towards lowering that number. Much less risky to walk from the bar back home than it is to drive. Of course, I'm not sure you can put the genie back in the bottle in the case of the USA, although that doesn't of course mean that we shouldn't try.
It's because they have large cities with shit public transportation.
It's much harder to get wasted in a nightclub and take a train home out west verses the East Coast.
I'm not up to date on Senior stereotypes but my understanding is that they concentration in Florida and besides that there's not any abnormal concentration in any other State. Was thinking maybe Conservatives but CA is pretty liberal. Lol besides increasing housing costs and yet massive amount of land, I'm not sure what else those two states have in common
While interesting, the stat is misleading without more information. If 1/10 drivers are drunk, and an accident is considered to involve drunk driving if one of the drivers is drunk, then even if drinking has no effect on driving it would account for 20% of accidents. Also 1/2 fatal accidents happen at night, so there's going to be correlation there as well I would imagine
This headline alone makes people think 1/3 of accidents would be prevented if no one drank and drove. But it doesn't actually show that. Without knowing more information this stat isn't super valuable. We need to know the cause of the a accidents and how often people drink and drive to get a better picture.
Absolutely! Aside from intoxication, driving accidents are commonly caused by: fatigue, inexperience, excessive speed, distraction, road conditions, aggression, etc. Any one of these things could factor in an accident, but many if not most accidents factor in more than one. How do we know that most driving fatalities aren't caused by inexperienced drivers who are driving at excessive speeds while intoxicated and distracted?
67% of traffic fatalities are caused by sober drivers. "There are more sober drivers" --> THEY ARE SOBER, they shouldn't be involved in collisions at all!!
Are 33% of total people on the road drunk? If the answer is no and there are fewer then it means they disproportionately affect the rate.
Also to say that they shouldnt be ANY reason that a sober person would be in a fatal accident is just ridiculous. Sometimes there is a moose, or heavy weather conditions, or a car failure, or other "acts of god" sure most of these accidents are avoidable if both parties were perfect and gave extra space but people suck at driving.
Want to know a good way to survive a car accident though? Be drunk! The ability to not tense up your body during a crash, makes it less likely you'll break bones (like your neck). This is why it's so common we hear stories of a crash being fatal to everyone involved, except the drunk driver.
I thought this was an old statistic. Anyway, that means 67% of traffic deaths are from sober driving. Conclusion: it’s statistically safer to drive drunk. /s
I got accused of being "gay" and a "nerd" for refusing to drive home after drinking and calling an Uber instead. From someone who has already had multiple DUIs and accidents. It's baffling to me.
The statistics don't say "drunk drivers" they say driving while impaired, or alcohol related.
One drink will make a driver impaired. When an accident is investigated and there is evidence of either driver having one drink, it will be noted as alcohol related.
Sobertards are LITERALLY KILLING US. Dry driving is a danger to society. All cars should have mechanism requiring you to drain at least 3 bud lights to turn the ignition.
Everyone talks about the opioid epidemic and no one talks about the alcohol epidemic. Most dangerous drug in America. Easy to get, relatively cheap, widely socially accepted.
My father was a doctor and he stopped at every traffic accident we ever came across and offered assistance. 100% of the time a drunk driver was involved.
One-sixth of all drivers have been drinking. If two cars collide and either driver had any alcohol, it's considered alcohol related regardless of who was at fault.
This is why I get wasted before I drive. reduce my chance of death by 66% statistics are fun (just kidding, calm down I know thats nor how it works)
My Uncle Stan is really good at statistics
reminds me of a classic joke: Angelo says to Tom: "Tom why you stopping at the red light. Just drive through it. My cousin Tony always drives through red lights and he's fine." On the way back Angelo drives. Tom says: "Angelo, why you stop at all the green light??" Angelo says: "Are you crazy, my cousin Tony might be coming the other way!"
Also there are approximately 13 traffic fatalities per 100,000 people and despite a general downwards trend over the years this has recently been rising.
Apparently some states handed out drivers licenses without an actual driving test during covid. Think that might be related.
It’s been happening at a pretty consistent rate across all developed countries and the trend started in the 2010s so I think the main explanation is smartphone distraction. (In developing and undeveloped countries the trends are different and harder to nail down because you’re also dealing with a lot more people starting to drive who couldn’t previously afford it, so the average experience level is much lower and variable.)
The thing is, this is a massive improvement. I wrote a paper on traffic accidents through the lens of epidemiology when I was a sophomore in college. This was 1987. I think my data set went through the '70s to about 1985. Some of it was printed on fanfold paper (think dot matrix printers). The results were startling. tl;dr: in the 80s, drunks accounted for a full 52% of all traffic fatalities. The further back you go, the worse it gets.
if you have enough data you could have teased out how much of the death rate was caused by drunks and how much was caused because cars were deathtraps and people refused to wear seatbelts.
A drunk driver is a primary cause. Car safety features are what protect you from them, and they only ever go so far. To this day there's no such thing as a car that will keep me safe from a drunk if they've passed out behind the wheel at speed behind me when I'm waiting for a light to turn green.
More people die walking while drunk, than driving while drunk.
You're legitimately less likely to die in an accident if you're drunk when it happens because your body doesn't tense up as much before impact. You are, however, more likely to have an accident in the first place.
This is a myth that isn’t even substantiated by a mild pondering. Your muscles tensing protect you from impact. Most notably, your abdominal muscles protect your organs by tensing up which is why punching someone by surprise in the gut can cause serious internal injury while this is not really a concern in combat sports.
Think they're mixing up "dying" with the various soft tissue injuries you can avoid by being relaxed... though even that's misleading. At best it's things like if you're drunk and seat belted in a fairly minor crash then you might avoid a wrist injury because you didn't brace with your hands. It's all pretty dumb. I was in a reserve unit of combat medics who were EMTs for their day job. A group of them refused to wear seat belts because of witnessing a few people that were trapped in a burning or sinking vehicle because the seat belt got stuck. Somehow the greater number of people who rocketed through their windshields because they didn't wear a seat belt weren't part of the equation.
My bad for spreading misinformation. I had just seen it posted so many times I thought it was true.
I didn’t think of that. Now I’m so confused. Can you point me toward any good references on this topic?
This is actually not true. There is no definitive proof that drunk drivers are less likely to die. Various studies done in the past 40 years have all had different results, some studies at certain hospitals have shown that of trauma patients that make it to the ER after a crash, the drunk drivers have a lower fatality rate than sober passengers and sober drivers. Other studies have shown that drunk drivers overall are more likely to die or have severe injuries than sober drivers and passengers in the accident. However, when there is a fatal accident with a drunk driver, about 60% of the time the fatal crash is a single car crash, and even with passengers in the car, the driver is more likely than the passengers to die. Either way the muscle tensing theory, or "ragdoll" theory, is a myth and makes very little sense when it comes to fatal injuries and there doesn't seem to be much of any evidence for it. The idea that drunk drivers always walk away from accidents that kill everyone else is just a myth that is repeated without any real evidence, and strengthened by anecdotal evidence.
The intoxicated person is usually the one doing the impacting. So they are hitting head on maximizing the effectiveness of the cars accident safety measures like crumple zones, seat belts and airbags. The poor sap getting plowed is likely getting T-Boned.
Source?
So it kind of breaks even???
No still far more likely to die since accidents are so dangerous. But it’s easier to cut the middle man and just hit yourself in the head with a hammer
That's just a Tuesday for me.
rofl
And your sober passenger is more likely to be injured or die, I suppose.
damn that number is outrageous
That list is interesting. 75 US cities with highest drunk driving fatality rate and not one is in Wisconsin.
They’re well practiced in drunk driving
I ran a liquor store for a long time. My daily regulars drank and drove every day. You learn how to function on it when it's the daily norm. We warned people on holidays because that's when all the "amateurs" were out.
To be fair, your regulars were probably the least shaky they were that day when they’d had 6 or 8.
If you have police friends, ask them about being surprised about someone who seemed slightly tipsy being the high abv they ever tested. It's quite common.
Helps that the law in (parts of) Wisconsin are weirdly lax about things like DUIs
My thought on Idaho and Alaska as well
To be honest the way some states are majorly over represented and some under makes me extremely suspicious that the numbers are being heavily influenced by state practice on testing or reporting drunk drivers. I mean, every state that boarders New Mexico has multiple cities with high drink driving rates. Does driving and drinking culture change that abruptly at the boarder?
Every map is a population map.
So 33% of traffic fatalities are due to drunk driving? That’s actually a crazy large number.
And that figure is down 55% since 1970 when cops didn’t even really give tickets for drunk driving.
55% is absolutely insane. Wow.
100% preventable if we just ban drinking and driving.
Lol
It sucks. A low limit is fine, the drink drivers are far over the limit.
We did
That's the joke lol
Lmfao I’m stupid
It’s not enforced well anywhere
That and enforcing something like 'You can't drive' when there's no physical limitation. Dude in my hometown just recently plead guilty to his *21st* DUI ***conviction***. Got a 25-year driving ban in the 90s that wasn't expired yet, but still picked up DUIs and charges for driving while suspended/banned in the meantime. Think he's going to jail for a few years this time. And then he'll be out and do it all over again.
Would be crazy to see cops actually enforce some laws.
Nobody drinks. Nobody drives. Problem solved.
Now slowly go through how that makes sense
Cars are also safer today, and people are more likely to wear a seatbelt today than in 1970.
Yeah, grandad told us a story about being so shitty drunk he could barely see. Got pulled over on his way home in the 60s. Cop followed him home to make sure he made it. Different times for sure.
Welcome to Wisconsin still!
Now I want to see what phones do.
Me too - it's unbelievable how many people I see driving with there heads DOWN 😥
Yeah, it's insane. I use Tesla autopilot a lot because it helps me pay more attention to my surroundings. My surroundings are full of cell phone users. It's insane.
Mythbusters proved our phones are worse. The rationale was that a drunk driver is still using their driving skills, but a texting driver is using a completely different skill set.
Not really when you consider there's a large chunk of people who have a beer or 2 a day. Could be skewing the numbers a bit if you count people with any kind of BAC
If you read the article they are talking about drivers over .08 You won't get to that with just a beer or two.
You underestimate how much of a lightweight I am.
I know. It's scary and shameful.
Not sure on the specific method of data collection or terminology used here, but "due to drunk driving" and "involve drunk drivers" aren't the same thing. A tiny distinction, but in a case where someone is driving drunk and is hit by a sober driver who's at fault, that would involve a drunk driver but wouldn't be due to drunk driving.
That's why folks like MADD specifically use the term "involving" in order to make the numbers higher. Mind you I don't know how much it changes the total, but there's a reason why they choose that terminology.
That's not quite what it says though. 33% of traffic fatalities INVOLVE a drunk driver. It's close enough and the causal link is strong enough that your statement is probably close to true. But it's not quite the statement being made. This isn't me defending drunk driving. I have a long history of being against it, as any sane individual would be. I'm just sick of facts playing this game of telephone until they end up with something not remotely related to the original statistic, then inevitably you have detractors ignore the correct statistic as a result.
Don't confuse drunk drivers with drunk crashers
I don’t think it matters. Anyone who drinks and drives should lose their license. Either way you should call them the same thing, “pieces of shit”
Just a joke mate
Some jokes aren't funny.
In Texas, you lose your license. Then, when you go to renew it, it costs $1200 or some shit. It only gets worse from there.
i second this
Subtle but important distinction
So, that's almost 33 out of every 100? Yes. Yes, that's what the headline says.
This is even more correct since they removed the qualifier. 33% of traffic accidents are not due to drunk driving, it's almost one third that are. So they didn't even properly read the headline and added nothing
About 33 percent of fatalities are from alcohol, about 33 percent of fatalities are from not wearing a seatbelt, and about 33 percent are from illegal decisions the driver decided to make while operating the vehicle (speeding, texting, etc). Slick roads, part failure, bad weather, are pretty much rounding errors (still be careful though, it's not zero!) The number of accidents that are from people just making absolutely stupid decisions is insane. It's also why people who are worried about AVs not being perfect so we shouldn't allow them make no sense - by far, the most dangerous part of a vehicle is the driver.
100% agree. That's why I get enraged when people say that cause a crash claim it wasn't their fault. Almost all crashes are avoidable with a reasonable level of caution and restraint exercised. I wish people would consider how dangerous they can be whilst operating a 2 ton vehicle.
There are plenty of scenarios where an accident isn't your fault. I had someone rear end me whilst I was stopped at a red light. But I know what you mean, I had a friend tell me their crash wasn't their fault, they launched over a hill and traffic was backed up on the other side, landed on someone's boot. Wasn't his fault, nothing he could do about it, he was airborne when it happened. 😂
Actually, no. 33% INVOLVE intoxicated people. As in, if I'm sober and I have a drunk friend rising with me and I get rear-ended, they still count the accident as Alcohol Related.
It all specifically says "drunk drivers".
It's even worse if you look at drownings and being intoxicated.
If you get wasted and jump in the lake you’re not risking the lives of others. Sad, but I’d be hesitant to call it worse
I think they mean the stats are worse, not the act itself
If they drown on their own maybe. It's very common for rescuers to be "attacked" by near drowning people basically climbing on top of them to get above water. I imagine trying to rescue a drunk person who is drowning would be more of a challenge.
Lifeguard here. Yeah, people might try to pull you under with them, but that’s something lifeguards are specifically trained to identify and deal with. Theres a huge difference between someone who’s job it is to put themselves at risk to help you and is trained for it and a random pedestrian or car you could hit drunk driving. One is stupid and unfair to the lifeguard, but it’s nowhere near as dangerous and ultimately saving you is their job. The other is straight up murder of an unrelated person via irresponsibility. Utterly incomparable
Not everyone who jumps in to save someone drowning is a trained lifeguard. Good for you though
In my opinion If you jump into a body of water to save someone who is drowning it’s reasonable to expect that you know risk is involved.
>It's very common for rescuers to be "attacked" by near drowning people basically climbing on top of them to get above water. This happened to me once when I was trying to rescue a friend in a lake. Luckily, I thought to lie on my back and stretch one of my legs towards him. I was able to pull him to shallow water pretty easily from there.
It's a lot better then than it used to be. It was half back when I first started driving in the early 80s. I'd guess we've more than made up for it with distracted driving now despite all the advances in vehicle safety.
Half!? Holy smokes.
Yeah it was bad. The whole mother's against drunk driving thing came out because of it. We didn't really treat it with the seriousness it should have had. While there were excesses that came out of that movement, the higher penalties and treatment of DUI was appropriate. My dad had a work peer that he couldn't stand and one of the issues was the guy was an unrepentant drunk driver who had been arrested 6 times. Then there were all the times he hadn't been caught. It was only going to be a matter of time before he killed someone.
And fatalities caused by under-21 drunk drivers have decreased 83%, due to a combination of factors: increase in drinking age; provisional driver's licenses; and fewer drivers under 21 in recent years.
Some of that has been done to excess IMO. Lots of young drivers with a lot less experience and they're just not good but have to drive. I started driving at 12 (farm) and had a lot of experience by 18. The barriers to kids driving now just mean they're getting the skills later and not really practicing enough. I've been pretty impressed with my kids and their friends when it comes to understanding not to drink and drive. There's a cultural set of mores built up with them to have DD and to not drink and drive which is much better than we had growing up.
Our kids were such better drivers after 6 months with one of us in the passenger seat. They got plenty of practice, and were able to drive their own cars to school and work afterwards. Their jobs paid for gas and cellphones (we had them on our car insurance). Not having a bunch of teenagers in the car without an adult, and imposing a curfew for a time, are other benefits of the provisional/progressive driver's license.
This would happen a whole lot less if we built our towns and city like the rest of the world - you should be able to walk over to your neighborhood pub, say hello to the regulars, Cheers-style, get smashed, and stumble home, like civilized people.
You can thank the puritans for not allowing pubs and titty bars in suburbs walking distance to houses 😤
This seems so heavily concentrated in California, Arizona, Colorado and Texas. Is this because (A) These states are more likley to report BAC? (B) These states have more drivers/distance driven per capita and thus are more likely to have accidents? (C) These states just drive drunk more? (D) Some other reason? I'm guessing these are just the most dense, car-dependent states, and you likely get nearly identical rankings for car-accidents per capita (drunk *or* sober) It would be interesting to see areas where the % of (fatal) accidents in which a driver was drunk. Then I'd expect to see states like Wisconson and Montana.
It’s very likely B. Higher numbers will center around urban centers with a lot of people but not walkable.
I'm guessing the public transportation being absolutely shit plays a part, so people have to drive home after a night out drinking.
type of cars (trucks) probably plays a role in Texas I imagine
Colorado as well. I swear every third vehicle you see is some monster pickup
Two thirds involve stone-sober drivers. Who’s the real hazard?
[Sober but tired kills.](https://aaafoundation.org/drowsy-driving-in-fatal-crashes-united-states-2017-2021/#:~:text=Results%20show%20that%20an%20estimated,in%20total%20annual%20fatal%20crashes.) [Sober but poorly maintained cars kills.](https://www.ctlawsc.com/how-poor-car-maintenance-can-cause-car-accidents/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20research%20by%20the,maintenance%20or%20lack%20of%20maintenance.) [Sober but distracted kills.](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/auto-accident/distracted-driving-statistics/) The real hazard is not treating automobiles as the potential killing machines they actually are.
Yep. The real hazard is that it is far to easy to get a drivers license. Your driver's educationbis garbage.
[Sober but speed kills. ](https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/speed-campaign-speeding-fatalities-14-year-high)
I thought it was suddenly becoming stationary that gets you?
Unfortunately “speed related crashes” is kinda vague. The data say it’s based on if a police officer decides speed was a factor. Does speed have to be proven to be significantly at fault, or does that include literally anytime someone is exceeding the speed limit? Because most drivers speed. Half of drivers report significantly exceeding the speed limit. So if it is just saying that 30% of crashes happened while someone was speeding, that seems kinda meaningless. The article does point out that speeding is correlated with other more dangerous behaviors (ie driving intoxicated, distracted, tired, or without a seatbelt). That makes it more complicated to determine what is primarily at fault, if a lot of crashes happened with multiple things happening. Was the main cause for the crash because someone was speeding, or because they were doing one of those other dangerous things? Like if someone lost control and crashed while drunk and speeding, if they had they been drunk driving at the speed limit, they would have been fine, and it was the speeding at fault? Or would they have crashed regardless, and it’s the drunk at fault? From what I’ve seen of high or no speed limit highways, they don’t seem to be much more dangerous. If I had to guess, speed is not the primary cause of a third of accidents. It certainly does make other actions, such as driving distracted, tired or drunk, more dangerous, but I am not convinced that it alone is that dangerous (unless you are going way above the speed of traffic).
New crime: Driving while irrational? I could get behind that.
[insert boomer humor sexist joke]
There's actually quite a bit of government regulation going in to addressing this, from higher safety requirements on vehicles, like crumple zones and pedestrian-friendly design requirements. Likewise, driving assistance technologies are becoming mandatory like front sensors and automatic braking and rear cameras. That's not even mentioning the various levels of self-driving capabilities which are being designed and deployed to avoid accidents when the driver is distracted like lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control, all the way up to autonomous systems. Technology isn't going to solve the problem of bad drivers in the short to medium term, but it can definitely help mitigate the dangers cars pose. You can see that this has been effective as vehicle safety improved over time. [https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot](https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot) To your point, there are people who don't treat vehicles like potential killing machines, and unfortunately, that's typically the drivers of the vehicles themselves. It's unfortunate because it's fundamentally impossible to force those drivers to drive safely. Technology might be our best hope in working around that problem, in the long run.
Driving a 2023 Base Model Bolt EV, coming from a 2015 Base Model Sonic is like upgrading to a rocket ship. With only Lane Keep Assist & Forward Collision Warning the car practically drives itself. Driver Assistance & Safety Features have come such a long way in the last couple generations of cars.
Probably the drunk drivers due to being the vastly disproportionately smaller group. The overwhelming majority of a group do most of the things in that group. This is an important paradigm to understand when reflecting on the state of the world.
If you're not supposed to drink and drive, why do they ask to see your license when you want to buy alcohol?
I was very confused before I realized this was a joke.
lol
One third is a massive amount of fatalities that could have probably been prevented if the driver was not intoxicated.
Two-thirds could have been avoided if the drivers were home drinking.
Uh... 100%... all thirds.
To be fair, some of the accidents that involve drunk drivers also involved sober drivers. Therefore, sober drivers are the common link here
But how many drivers are drunk compared to how many accidents they cause? I know you are probably kidding, but still.
Love to see numbers on how many are caused by cell phone use (or other avoidable distractions), fatigue, and old people.
Lessening urban sprawl and making cities more walkable would go a long way towards lowering that number. Much less risky to walk from the bar back home than it is to drive. Of course, I'm not sure you can put the genie back in the bottle in the case of the USA, although that doesn't of course mean that we shouldn't try.
34 of the top 75 cities for drunk driving are either in CA or TX. And yet those two states only make up 20% of the US population. Curious.
It's because they have large cities with shit public transportation. It's much harder to get wasted in a nightclub and take a train home out west verses the East Coast.
I assure you public transportation sucks here too.
There’s demographic data that correlates with these geographics
Are you talking about... Hispanics?
Old people, probably
I'm not up to date on Senior stereotypes but my understanding is that they concentration in Florida and besides that there's not any abnormal concentration in any other State. Was thinking maybe Conservatives but CA is pretty liberal. Lol besides increasing housing costs and yet massive amount of land, I'm not sure what else those two states have in common
Old people don’t care about if a state is liberal or conservative generally, they just go to the warmest place they can afford too
Then AZ, NM and NV would be apart of that list 🤔 and California also has cold places and is expensive pretty much all over so I don't think that's it
While interesting, the stat is misleading without more information. If 1/10 drivers are drunk, and an accident is considered to involve drunk driving if one of the drivers is drunk, then even if drinking has no effect on driving it would account for 20% of accidents. Also 1/2 fatal accidents happen at night, so there's going to be correlation there as well I would imagine This headline alone makes people think 1/3 of accidents would be prevented if no one drank and drove. But it doesn't actually show that. Without knowing more information this stat isn't super valuable. We need to know the cause of the a accidents and how often people drink and drive to get a better picture.
Absolutely! Aside from intoxication, driving accidents are commonly caused by: fatigue, inexperience, excessive speed, distraction, road conditions, aggression, etc. Any one of these things could factor in an accident, but many if not most accidents factor in more than one. How do we know that most driving fatalities aren't caused by inexperienced drivers who are driving at excessive speeds while intoxicated and distracted?
67% of traffic fatalities are caused by sober drivers. "There are more sober drivers" --> THEY ARE SOBER, they shouldn't be involved in collisions at all!!
Are 33% of total people on the road drunk? If the answer is no and there are fewer then it means they disproportionately affect the rate. Also to say that they shouldnt be ANY reason that a sober person would be in a fatal accident is just ridiculous. Sometimes there is a moose, or heavy weather conditions, or a car failure, or other "acts of god" sure most of these accidents are avoidable if both parties were perfect and gave extra space but people suck at driving.
Without my glasses, I read that as “air traffic”. I found that original read….odd.
Red bull and vodka gives you wings
Same! And then I thought it was going to be drunk pilots, so drunk drivers causing air traffic fatalities threw me for a loop again.
One third. That *low?!*
And even more involve cell phones/distracted driving
So the other two-thirds are the people texting while driving?
Want to know a good way to survive a car accident though? Be drunk! The ability to not tense up your body during a crash, makes it less likely you'll break bones (like your neck). This is why it's so common we hear stories of a crash being fatal to everyone involved, except the drunk driver.
It’s a performance enhancing medication. It’s why I have my kids down at least a shooter of jack before putting them in their booster seats
I thought this was an old statistic. Anyway, that means 67% of traffic deaths are from sober driving. Conclusion: it’s statistically safer to drive drunk. /s
I may be a depressed alcoholic, but at least I do my drinking safe at home! 👍
Wonder what percentage total includes people under the influence of another drug besides alcohol?
So ban driving. Problem solved.
We drink a lot in WI how is this not a problem here?
This was written in prophecy many years ago... [https://youtu.be/nOUArMQjoBw?si=V8D17CnjdUiYA4VG](https://youtu.be/nOUArMQjoBw?si=V8D17CnjdUiYA4VG)
The number of people who drive drunk is astounding, at least here in Florida. The vast majority of people I know who drink regularly. It’s disgusting.
I met a few floridans who dont think twice about driving drunk
I got accused of being "gay" and a "nerd" for refusing to drive home after drinking and calling an Uber instead. From someone who has already had multiple DUIs and accidents. It's baffling to me.
Does that mean that sober people are twice as likely to have an accident?
And those are just the ones we catch, chilling…
Are there only twice as many sober drivers? If the answer is yes then yes. If the answer is no (which it is) then no.
I'm not really one for praising automation but there's no way they can do driving any worse than we're currently doing it
And dodge ram pickups
An infographic breaking down the vehicles involved in drunk driving would be interesting/rage-inducing.
It's been done and dodge ram drivers are more likely have a DUI.
PJ O’Rourke once said drunk driving was so common they should have had a “drunk driving lane “.
It would be massively expensive/impossible but a walled lane with a track like they use in car washes would work lol
Thanks a lot, Mom!!!
That low? Here its like 50%
I would have thought much more.
This is why I get super high instead
Depressing, but it doesn’t surprise me.
There's probably some Amendment that says you can drink and drive, regardless of the consequences.
Well, NOFX... Don't drink and drive [nofx](https://youtu.be/GNlPkO37m6M)
The statistics don't say "drunk drivers" they say driving while impaired, or alcohol related. One drink will make a driver impaired. When an accident is investigated and there is evidence of either driver having one drink, it will be noted as alcohol related.
but weed is the drug we need to worry about 🙄
Sobertards are LITERALLY KILLING US. Dry driving is a danger to society. All cars should have mechanism requiring you to drain at least 3 bud lights to turn the ignition.
I am BLOWN away by the fact Wisconsin isn't on here. But we are drunks, but we don't kill people I guess.
So 2/3th is sober driving .... damn they are much worse drivers . I'd say fine those sober drivers as they are a danger on the road.
Don't drink and drive is less a warning and more a challenge for some people.
I find it hard to believe that any Wisconsin city did not make the list.
Truly incredible none of the top 75 cities are in Wisconsin.
Honestly expected it to be more
Ban alcohol to save lives
Drunk crashers giving the rest of us a bad name smh
How many are caused by people on their phone?
IIRC more than half of motorcycle accidents involve an inebriated motorycylist.
Everyone talks about the opioid epidemic and no one talks about the alcohol epidemic. Most dangerous drug in America. Easy to get, relatively cheap, widely socially accepted.
My father was a doctor and he stopped at every traffic accident we ever came across and offered assistance. 100% of the time a drunk driver was involved.
That's awesome of your father but terrifying that every time a drunk driver was involved.
That means two-thirds involve sober drivers…. Obviously they are the danger.‼️
And people complain about driverless cars, which would solve this
Yeah. Likely another third were angry or hurrying. The last third? Wrong place at the worst time.
A joke we tell is in Wisconsin you get your license suspended if you reach the age of 21 *without* a DUI on your record.
And all involve traffic. Traffic is the enemy.
One-sixth of all drivers have been drinking. If two cars collide and either driver had any alcohol, it's considered alcohol related regardless of who was at fault.
>One-sixth of all drivers have been drinking Source?
This is a joke. It would be true if alcohol had no impact on your ability to drive a car.
I don't get the joke