re: Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over

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Very much agree. "distracted" drivers are becoming the new drunk drivers

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There are sooo many accidents involving this, it is ridiculous. I have been in 3 because of it. Bumped into a girl while driving, and have had two people hit me while dicking around on their phone. It's not bad luck, it is just the fact that so many people do it, it's bound to happen.

Absolutely zero is being done about it.....unless cops need a reason to pull kids over at night for DWI.

You know what else causes accidents and road rage? Hogging the left lane. Yeah it's illegal, but no one is pulled over for it....unless cops need a reason to pull people over for DWI at night.

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Geez... Sounds like driving sober is a huge problem in SC

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LOL, 17,000 families destroyed from tragedy, totally hilarious.

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According to the Highway Safety Research Group, 365 total fatal crashes in LA this year, of which 136 were caused by the impaired driver.

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Ok....but that pool can be diluted further, because 230 fatal crashes were caused by the non-impaired driver. Even "sober" drivers make mistakes. Out of the 136, how many would have happened regardless of alcohol? Obviously, there are some.....(i.e., guy falls asleep while driving; guy drives wrong way down I-10) However, there are some that were likely caused by typical distractions that were probably the basis for the 230 fatal crashes (i.e. texting, playing with radio, etc...) So, the stats are not "black and white". I'd guess that probably 80 of those 136 were actually caused by the "drunken" status of the driver. Still not a good number, but not the "epidemic" that is thrown around. Not advocating drinking and driving. I lost friends who got drunk and ran into a tree. However, MADD is like all other lobbying organizations...they like to work the numbers....which is obvious by the "alcohol-related" benchmark that gets thrown around. If you don't think checkpoints are about nothing but money, you are kidding yourself. I believe they are a violation of constitutional rights to be free from warrantless searches and seizures. (You shouldn't get pulled over if you haven't done anything.) The way they get around that is the "numbers" that are thrown around...i.e. "alcohol related accidents". And that's how that works.

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However, MADD is like all other lobbying organizations..

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NHTSA doesn't get their stats from MADD.

From what I've seen, kids now are significantly less likely to drive drunk than 10-15 years ago. I have no idea why. Probably not due to enforcement or anything, they just don't do it

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According to the Highway Safety Research Group, 365 total fatal crashes in LA this year, of which 136 were caused by the impaired driver.

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That's not what it says, it says 136 "Vehicles with Alcohol Involvement". It doesn't say if that vehicle caused the accident, if the driver was legally drunk, or if alcohol was the cause of the accident.

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it is amazing the rest of crime is down but rape and murder are both up

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Way to use one half of one year to make a point instead of the using the last decade to get a more accurate trend.

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These were among the 150 people slain in New Orleans in 2014. It was the lowest number of criminal homicides recorded in the city since 1971 and the city's lowest per-capita murder rate since 1999

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The way I interpreted the OP is why not focus a little more on preventing people from getting robbed, stabbed and shot in New Orleans and at gas stations in Baton Rouge rather than trying to bust every swinging dick who had an old fashioned at dinner and decided to drive home

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Thank you Ham. You stated it more succinctly than I did.

And to the ones that asked about how many DUI's I have? Zero. Zip. Nada. And and I've got Uber and Yellow Cab bills to prove it. I'm just trying to say that I'm a lot more worried about my personal safety walking around in New Orleans, or driving in certain parts of Baton Rouge, including close to me, or for that matter, the teenager texting while driving down Essen at rush hour, than I am from an encounter with an impaired driver. How ever many officers and units that are parked at these checkpoints (in Baton Rouge, always in the more affluent areas of town or after certain well publicized events) are that many resources not pounding the streets of the FQ, or driving around in areas where they would be a deterrent to crime. In cases where I as a taxpayer am paying for limited resources, I just want to make sure that officials are allocating them appropriately.

Footnote: I'm quite certain I would feel differently if I had been personally impacted by an impaired driver, just as I would expect people impacted by a violent crime would feel differently. Thankfully, I've not experienced either first-hand.

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These were among the 150 people slain in New Orleans in 2014. It was the lowest number of criminal homicides recorded in the city since 1971 and the city's lowest per-capita murder rate since 1999

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So, New Orleans is bragging about there ONLY being 150 murders....using statistics posted above, there were more in that one city than all the fatalities state-wide involving an impaired driver, and as was pointed out, some percentage of those were likely due to some other screwup that may or may not have been related to their BAC.

This is why I'd rather more boots on the ground than fannies in the van at checkpoints. Again, that's just one man's opinion.

Agreed, but unfortunately that is probably more effective.

People are far more likely to know someone with a DUI than they are to know someone involved in an alcohol related accident.

I had a close friend killed by a man with 4 prior DUIs before he finally killed someone.