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Yet More Neoprohibition

Thursday, July 15th, 2004

This time from Missouri. In January 2003, the state’s new .08 BAC restriction went into effect. The result? Drunk driving arrests went up 14%. Two-thirds of those new arrests were motorists with BAC levels between .08 and .10.

There’s just one problem. There were 12% more drunk driving deaths in Missouri in 2003 than in the ten years prior. That’s been in the case in about half the states that have passed .08. Others have seen drunk driving deaths stay about even, or decline at rates statistically insignificant.

I’d say that’s some pretty strong correlative evidence that Missouri’s new law put cops on scent of the wrong people, wouldn’t you?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2004 at 4:21 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

9 Responses to “Yet More Neoprohibition”

  1. #1 |  MP |  July 15th, 2004 at 7:02 pm

    Are there studies that relate the arrest rate to the reasons for the arrest? I would suspect that a 14% increase in arrests was not related to a 14% increase in stops due to signs of drunkenness, but rather a 14% increase in arrests due to roadblocks and speeding that lead to DWI accusations.

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  2. #2 |  B-Man |  July 15th, 2004 at 7:02 pm

    You know MADD will just say that even with .08, the problem is spiraling out of control, so we need even tighter control. Let’s go to .04.

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  3. #3 |  cubicle |  July 15th, 2004 at 7:32 pm

    proably the drunk people drove by slowly while the ones being arrested where being made to walk the line

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  4. #4 |  James |  July 16th, 2004 at 7:08 am

    I think you’ll find that those extra deaths from drunk driving comes from the extra number of “drunk” drivers the new law creates, that were there all along. Alcohol is involved in something like 2/3rds of all accidents. I would suspect that drunk drivers (with the old 1.0 limit) do not account for all of these however. The difference between “legally drunk” and “had a beer or two” makes up this difference. Just as if you lower the drunk driving limit to absolutely nothing, 100% of accidents would involve drunk drivers. It’s simple number fixing.

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  5. #5 |  James |  July 16th, 2004 at 7:09 am

    Look at the total number of ALL accidents. Not just those that involve drunk drivers. If this has gone up, then the bill has not worked.

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  6. #6 |  Brian J. |  July 16th, 2004 at 8:37 am

    But the bill is a resounding success!

    Missouri continues to receive Federal highway funding.

    What did you think the goal was?

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  7. #7 |  Chris |  July 16th, 2004 at 8:40 am

    Law Enforcement isn’t about protecting anybody. It is a revenue stream, nothing more. And I am sure James is right, alcohol related deaths are probably the same, but before if the driver had a BAC of .08 is wasn’t tallied in the alcohol related deaths and now it is.

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  8. #8 |  Ms. Dani |  July 16th, 2004 at 10:06 am

    Sad thing is, they probably consider an increase in drunk driving arrests as an indication that the program is successful.

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  9. #9 |  Danno49 |  July 16th, 2004 at 2:02 pm

    Brought to you by the land of the fees and the home of de-brained.

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