TheAgitator.com
MADDness, Ct’d.
Friday, June 20th, 2003The “You Drink, You Drive, You Lose” campaign hits San Diego. Note that this article from a San Diego television news station could have come verbatim (and probably did) from a YDYDYL news release. Not a contrarian voice in the entire thing. The “for more information” links too take you straight to the anti-alcohol propoganda sites, but offer no alternative viewpoints.
But golly, when mothers and cops and government are all on the same side, can there really be another viewpoint?
Note that the misleading statistics are getting more and more egregious. The article says, “An estimated 1 billion driving trips are made per year by drinking-drivers, that is, those driving within two hours after drinking.”
Is that our new measure of what makes a driver dangerous — “driving within two hours after drinking?”
This sentence is a keeper, too:
“Last Fourth of July, 147 people in San Diego County were arrested for driving under the influence and three people died. ”
Note, “under the influence” is not the same as intoxicated. And exactly how bad is 147 people arrested over a 4th of July weened in a city of 1.2 million? And how did those three people die? Were they drunk? Were they killed by drunk drivers? Or did three people die on San Diego roadways last 4th of July, independent of whether or not alcohol was involved? The sentence reads suspiciously ambiguous.
MADD’s own website suggests that San Diego isn’t exactly facing a DUI epidemic. DUI fatalities in 2002 in San Diego county were down 22% from 2001, and have decreased 40% in the last decade.
Yet MADD still insists the city is in need of stepped-up sobriety checkpoints and “saturation patrols.” Inexplicably, a CHiPs officer told the flak…er…”reporter,” “We are very serious about this campaign due to the fact that there has been a rise in the amount of impaired drivers out there on the highway.”
Well, yes. Define “impaired” down from .10 to .08 to “anyone who’s had a drink in the last two hours” and you’ll most likely see a rise in the number of people “impaired.”
Thanks to reader Andy, aka “DJ Big Bird” for the link.
The alcohol prohibition crowd is fast going the way of the reefer madness crowd. They keep expanding the envelope of those that are supposedly guilty of being deranged, impaired, permanently damaged, etc from a substance until it eventually encompasses a majority that knows better.
Anyone who reads the MADD piece will say to himself “I’ve had a beer and driven within two hours, and I don’t feel I was recklessly endangering the lives of others.” This is not an incorrigible drunk, it’s a regular guy.
Then him and everyone else like him will simply stop listening to what the MADD folks have to say, pretty much like everyone has stopped paying attention to those who insist smoking pot from time to time makes you the embodiment of evil and irresponsibility.
That’s the problem with Crusaders. They simply don’t know when their initial provident advice has turned into just more blather and hysteria that we all simply ignore.
Another comment on the 147 stat for last Jul 4: It was a 4 day weekend (Jul 4 was on a Thurs), so they are counting 4 days for that weekend. Hm…more stats inflation.
The situation though, John, is that MADD must expand the envelope or it ceases to have a mission, as all it’s original objectives have largely been met.
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