Right, that's the only way to cram 300,000,000 into neat pigeon holes.

It's a good graph Pico but it does not isolate .08's effect. For example it doesn't take into account a big drop in drinking overall, a major cultural shift. Especially down is binge drinking in inexperienced drivers, the most dangerous kind:

http://cellar.org/2010/hsdrinkinggraph.gif

In fact, given these trends, along with improved alcohol education, you would expect your graph to have an even larger drop-off.

Yeah, but if you did drink and drive, you would have pulled it off.

You and your husband considered the possibilities and decided not to drink. Two decades ago you would have decided which of you was in better condition to drive, and then you would have driven home; and nothing would have happened. You would have known you were impaired, it would be unusual to you, and you would have driven carefully. In fact if you knew you were actually not in condition to drive, you wouldn't have driven.

Alcoholics do not have this choice. I'm suggesting that most really serious, fatal accidents do not happen at .08, but are alcoholics who are at .15 and up.

At .08 you are three seconds slower, and you rear-end somebody at a red light, but you're going 10 MPH because you've hit the brakes, just too late.

At .13 you miss the red light entirely and T-bone somebody in the intersection. It sucks hard, but nobody (usually) dies.

But at .27 you enter the wrong ramp of the highway, go the wrong way at 50 MPH and hit someone head-on.

Because you're an alcoholic, you fail to make the right choice even if you are a PA state trooper and accident investigator who had a similar crash four months prior.

additional story

Bonus karma: the trooper killed himself, but not his 23 year old victim. He was not wearing a seatbelt... she was.

cars are safer too

All true and also it occurred to me this morning that the seat belt law has probably had an affect on those numbers as well. But I really hate the rationalizing that goes along with the decision to drink and drive. Its just best to not do it, because once alcohol is in the equation, judgment is always impaired.

Are you sure, tho, that the .08 limit hasn't played a part in reducing drunk driving incidents overall?

yeah, that's true. is there a stat that gives alcohol related accidents?

Those numbers are hard to get because they aren't collected by the feds. The states have a lot of detail; PA creates a book on all the stats every year. But they are weak on historical numbers. PA's latest book only gives a 5 year trend on alcohol related crashes. The numbers trend down, going from about 13,500 crashes in 2004 to 12,750 in 2008. The number of fatal crashes trends slightly up, going from 487 to 498.

hey! take this shit to a drunk driving thread? there were like 3 lameass confessions, what are y'all, saints?

One of the many reasons I dropped out of Catholicism was the whole concept of confessional. I never felt that I had done anything wrong, certainly nothing that a forgiving god would hold a child's feet to the fire for, so the whole canard seemed forced and affected.

I reasoned, god knew what I'd been up to anyway, and he knew what was in my heart, therefore knowing whether I really was repentant, so why get some priest involved in the deal?

Sermon fodder?

I wonder where priests stand on guys who save it up for years, give a very descriptive high-light reel, and immediately follow up with out-takes of same, including clerical reaction, in a drunken group setting...

Anyway I didn't even go near the thing when I was churched, it is too manipulative.

OMG, I thought that said semen fodder

Ha! Perfect.

I just went grocery shopping and was so pissed off that I left my cart on the tree island in the parking lot instead of returning it to the store or a bay. I never do that.

Left your cart on the tree island?? What are you, some type of monster?

what got you that enraged?

Brain-dead cashier, of course....