What is UP with the Alcohol laws here!?

[SoonerDave]

Sorry for the additional post on this, but the chart MadMonk posted was striking.

One important point the page points out (not reflected in the graph) is that the data considers as an alcohol-related fatality *any* accident in which one of the participants was drunk, but not necessarily the *causative* factor in the crash, eg a car driven by a sober driver swerving to avoid, say, a child in the street, then veering out of control onto a sidewalk and striking/killing an inebriated pedestrian would be considered "alcohol-related". That *very* important caveat means there is a component in the statistics that no drunk driving laws will *ever* mitigate - alcohol-related fatalities where alcohol was *not* the causative factor.

Under those factors, you'll *never* get the numbers to zero unless you completely eliminate alcohol consumption from society, which is obviously not going to happen.

Some other observations.....the chart strongly suggests (but admittedly dosen't prove) that:

1) The number of alcohol-related fatalities per miles-traveled is a constant percentage of all miles traveled (reflected in both the state and national lines)

2) Oklahoma's alcohol fatality rate is trending toward the national rate.

That would suggest to me that there are other factors in play, and I'd theorize that broad education about alcohol consumption and driving is probably an important general dampening factor in all of this discussion, laws regarding alcohol availability notwithstanding...

-SoonerDave

[davido]

that dosen't make any sence to me.. curbing drinking and driving, the beer is cold in 7-11 and the whisky is avalible. if your that much of a lush drinking it warm is no problem.