[cellsafemode]

Originally Posted by UnknownJinX

There are a few factors that you overlooked:

- the first article mentioned the fatalities, not the number of incidents. Remember that even a tiny car like Chevy Spark nowadays will hold up WAY better than any car from the 80s in a crash. That will also decrease the fatalities caused by impaired driving.

The stats on non-fatal accidents are harder to find on a national level. But found this one from indiana that covers a few years

https://trafficsafety.iupui.edu/topi...2016_FINAL.pdf

This shows that while total accidents increased year over year, alcohol related non-fatal ones remained steady or dropped.

I see no reason to think that pattern wont exist across the board.

The pattern is, dui fatal or not is not increasing linearly with the increase in population of drivers (while accidents in general is). The disproportionate crack down on dui driving seems to be a big red flag as to why.

- the Internet also makes spreading a message a lot easier than back in the 80's and 90's. Media outlets have also changed quite a bit.

not sure how that matters. are you suggesting that the internet makes shaming people into not making mistakes more than the fear of the police catching them or having to deal with the aftermath of being in an accident while dui? The internet existing or not has nothing to do with the data reporting.

IMO stricter laws work... Up to a certain point. After that, it's diminishing returns at best. At worst, it backfires or people start pushing back. There are so many examples to show my point:

- the alcohol ban in the 30's. We all know how that went. Rich people didn't give a flip and just smuggled alcohol - which cost pocket change to slightly more pocket change to them. The working class took their chances and started drinking fake alcohol, some of which was made with methanol which killed them. Nothing changed, but you had more people die from drinking fake alcohol. Rich people are pretty much always above the law anyway. They have an army of lawyers that will find any loopholes in the law.

nobody is suggesting all laws make sense or that they should exist and their failure just requires harsher penalties. This wasn't a case of a law that was too harsh ...it was the case of a law that shouldn't have existed at all.

The fact is, we dont have a population of people who think it's cool to street race / kill people with their car or generally suck at driving and get into accidents. So laws that punish those that do are not going to meet the kind of response as prohibition.

- and speeding. It's one of those things that doesn't get reinforced as strictly, and yet, most people drive at a speed that's considered safe and reasonable. Look up Solomon curve. You will always have your Toyota drivers that drive way too slowly and teens being stupid doesn't matter how you set the speed limit or change the repercussions. Most people are simply trying to get a balance of getting to a place at a reasonable speed while making sure they do make it there in one piece.

The sad thing is, media will probably make a big deal out of incidents like this and then try to paint your average commuters that go 10 MPH over the speed limit the same as this one Camaro guy and thousands of Mustangs out there.

you'll be lucky if in the coming decades your car will let you go beyond the speed limit or that it will not tattle on you to the police for a ticket or that the roads wont be littered with speed cameras like it the UK.

even speed limits are an easy example to see where my point stands.

people break that law to varying degrees when they think they can get away with it and think it's worth the given penalty for how much they break it and follow it strictly when they think they'll get caught in general. Why does it suddenly get followed (such as when a cop is in sight )? not because the people got all ethical and more responsible. They simply fear the punishment.


I'm not saying i want draconian control and enforcement of every single law, just that the laws currently do not hold drivers accountable to the level they should be when in control of a 2-3 ton machine on public land and if they did, a lot of drivers would be more careful and that dent in the total numbers matters. It doesn't have to be 100% effective to be good. it's not like those not falling afoul of the existing laws will suffer any more than they already do. So win-win for everyone except those doing what they shouldn't.