The Sober State = All Of Us + 0.8! –
The triangular equation of “drunk driving” involves three parties who are responsible in creating the problem, and who also have the potential of being part of a solution, of the high number of traffic fatalities that occur each year due to drunk drivers. State governments, liquor establishment owners, and the drunk driver all contribute to the grim national statistics that represent the numbers of fatalities yearly due to the victims of drivers who get behind the wheel while intoxicated. While grass-roots organizations like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers), SADD (Students Against Drunk Drivers), and RID (Remove Intoxicated Drivers) have combined to have a major impact on drunk driving legislation in all fifty states over the past decade, often these efforts were and still are aimed at one leg of the drunk driving “cause(s)” triangle (legislation designed to raise the level of punishment severity against drunk drivers). For this reason, more severe penalties against the drunk driver (including proposed legislation by MADD to make drunk driving a “federal” as opposed to a “criminal” offense) have emerged, but the problem actually escalated in 1995 for the first time in a decade of effort to the contrary, despite the massive efforts of grass roots groups with conviction:
Because harsher drunk driving legislation alone does not seem to have a significant impact on the number of deaths attributable to drunk drivers, the solution actually involves harsher drunk driving legislation (in the form of lowering the legal Blood Alcohol Concentration [BAC] to .08%) combined with a unique solution that involves state legislators, alcohol vendors, local law enforcement agents and people who drink after going out in their cars. This solution that combines lowering the BAC to .08% and involvement from other segments of society will be the focus of this research.
When drunk driving ...