| Aug 09 |
More women DUI car accidents may get you MADD
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the percent of women arrested for DUI is increasing, while the percent of male DUI arrests drops. Men are still far more prone to DUI or DWI arrest — by almost a four-to-one ratio – but in a changing world where women face increased pressures on economic fronts as their husbands lose jobs, and sometimes a tendency to behave like “the boys,” more and more women are stressed, driving cars and doing so while drunk. |
Ads for a certain slim cigarette aimed at women once crowed, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” In short, smoking was seen as twisted liberation for women. Sadly, the same is now true for drinking alcohol.
| Jul 27 |
A bad thing? New Texas drunk driving law fights car accident carnage
Some consider it an outrage, violating civil liberties, the Constitution and perhaps apple pie and the flag. Others protest it will create a logjam at blood testing centers used by authorities in Houston, Harris County and elsewhere. In other words, it will be too time-consuming to test each potential DUI offender, so why not just let them go if they refuse a breathalyzer test? Meanwhile, criminal defense attorneys worry that law enforcers will “run amok” if given such leeway. All of these alarmists seem to disregard what’s truly alarming: Drunk drivers continue to wreak unspeakable carnage on America’s streets and highways. Since 1982, more than half a million innocent Americans have been killed in car accidents by drunk drivers, including many drunks who were repeat offenders. Think about it: More than half a million — dead — because people drove drunk. |
The Houston Chronicle reports a furor over a | Jul 23 |
Drivers on cell phones as bad as drunk drivers!
“That’s why we call ourselves safety lawyers,” Adler said. “Remember the Ford Pinto and its exploding gas tank that killed so many in accidents? After Ford got sued by personal injury lawyers who won big settlements for victims, it redesigned that killer car. The same goes for those knobs on dashboards that used to seriously injure people in accidents. We got rid of them too. Now one of the biggest dangers on the road is caused by cell phones.” Here are the disturbing details of the New York Times story: Back in 2003, researchers at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wanted to do a long-term study to find out how dangerous it is to use a cell phone while driving. They had preliminary studies showing the scary potential of such multi-tasking behind the wheel. But the powers-that-be at NHTSA ruled against an in-depth study because they feared the wrath of Congress. NHTSA’s mission is to gather evidence, according to a former head of the agency, not to lobby the states. In fact, it is strictly forbidden to engage in lobbying. How much did NHTSA know and when did NHTSA know it? The decision not to do the study suppressed hundreds of pages of evidence showing the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving. In 2002, NHTSA researchers could show that drivers on cell phones caused an estimated 995 highway fatalities and 240,000 accidents that year alone. Still, NHTSA withheld that information and denied the researchers’ request for a long-term study of 10,000 drivers. The agency didn’t want to look as though it were lobbying states to pass tougher laws against talking on cell phones while driving. Ultimately, many states did enact laws mandating the use of hands-free devices for drivers on cell phones. But that didn’t stop accidents. Research shows that talking distracts the brain from driving, with or without a hands-free device. How did the story get out? The Los Angeles Times carried a report last year. That triggered a Freedom of information Act lawsuit by the Center for Auto Safety, a non-profit watchdog group, to get the suppressed documents. Mother Jones, another national publication, then did a story with new details. Two consumer advocacy groups, The Center for Auto Safety and Public Citizen, have now provided the documents to The New York Times where they are available on the newspaper’s website. Was it a government cover-up? That’s what the director of the Center for Auto Safety calls it. Clarence Ditlow says talking on a cell phone while driving is tantamount to driving with a blood alcohol level of .08, making drivers four times as likely to hit another car. |
Who knew?| Jul 02 |
July 4th traffic deaths, drownings show liberty needs responsibilityJuly 4th weekend is a time to celebrate America’s liberty. Yet our liberties don’t include driving while impaired, a misjudgment which claims almost one third of all traffic deaths yearly, and an even higher 40 per cent of all traffic deaths on the mid-summer holiday. Alcohol abuse by drivers crosses all geographic and socioeconomic lines. But motorcyclists have the highest proportion of alcohol abuse of any drivers on the road, and thus more motorcyclists die in traffic accidents on Independence Day than on any other day of the year. |
| Jun 26 |
New Texas law helps war on drunk driving accidents
Each year, the car carnage caused by drunk driving totals around 16,000 deaths, hundreds of thousands of injuries and many billions of dollars in damages. For far too long, enough has been enough. Yet the plague continues. Each day, law-abiding people die in horrific accidents, and all because drunks were loose on our roads and highways. Despite decades of effort and outstanding crusaders such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the terrible toll persists. |
America is at war — not with another country, but with its own drunk drivers. You may not sense that your country is at war with them, but drunk drivers — by default if not design — are definitely at war with America, inflicting far more deaths, injuries and damages that many military conflicts.| Jun 11 |
MADD on the right track in fighting drunk driving accidents
Every day new tragedies erupt and new statistics add up. Yet not enough is being done about it, which is one reason why MADD just severed its ties with the “Century Council,” an activist group — funded by the liquor industry itself — with which MADD had collaborated. |
Beyond groups such as | Apr 20 |
Drunk driving AND calling ensure a car accident
That’s what Houston prosecutors are confronting as they assess the case of a man who reportedly was both drunk and receiving a cell phone call when he ran off a road and into a drainage ditch recently near Bush Intercontinental Airport, causing the unimaginable horror of drowning five young children who were occupants of the vehicle. |
Studies show that persons who call and text while behind the wheel drive as poorly as if they were drunk. Now imagine a driver being drunk and using a cell phone at the same time.| Sep 03 |
Drunk driving merits stronger reactionsWhen it comes to drunk driving, there’s little chance America’s judicial and law enforcement systems can overreact. Given the horrendous and senseless carnage on America’s roads, they can only react adequately, or they can underreact. But within the limits of the law, it’s highly doubtful they can overreact. |
| Jul 29 |
LaBeouf may not laugh after this drunk driving
This time it was Shia LaBeouf, star of this summer’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and last year’s Transformers. Now Transformers’ sequel will fall behind schedule because LaBeouf required extensive surgery on his left hand after the accident. In the accident at 3 a.m. Sunday in West Hollywood, LaBeouf also had injuries to his head and knee. A female passenger in his car and the driver of the other vehicle were not seriously hurt and did not require hospitalization. (more…) |
Again, a Hollywood star with the world at his feet has gotten drunk, driven his car in the middle of the night and been involved in a traffic accident.