Still, I think it is a valid point that drink driving is seen as a moral problem and therefore its practical impact as a cause of accidents and deaths is perceived as larger than it actually is. Yes, it's horrible when a drink driver kills a child, etc, but the risk of that happening per DUI incident is not actually very high.
I'm not from the US, but over here (Finland), drink drivers are generally most dangerous to themselves. Of course there are some innocent people who are killed and injured by drink drivers, and these cases are particular tragedies, but most deaths resulting from drink driving are either people who kill themselves by stupidity, or at least consent to be in a vehicle where the driver is DUI.
Another thing I could bring up from analysis of traffic deaths is the large number of suicides we have -- about 20 % of traffic deaths; this is becoming a burden on truck drivers because they carry a lot of the emotional burden when someone decide to smash their car at high speed to an oncoming truck.
And yet another astonishing factor is deaths of "natural causes" (heart attack, stroke etc) while driving. These make up something around 10-15 % of traffic deaths here.
>Still, I think it is a valid point that drink driving is seen as a moral problem and therefore its practical impact as a cause of accidents and deaths is perceived as larger than it actually is...
> ...over here (Finland), drink drivers are generally most dangerous to themselves. Of course there are some innocent people who are killed and injured by drink drivers but most deaths resulting from drink driving are either people who kill themselves or consent to be in a vehicle where the driver is DUI.
You can't argue that problem is being overly focused on condemnation of the person who drinks and drives and then ignore our responsibility to keep them from hurting themselves either.
Umm, why couldn't I? If we don't think of suicides or drink driving as a moral wrong (we could call this idea "sin"), why couldn't we let people do whatever they want, up to allowing them to end their lives - as long as people are not hurting others? The externalities are a problem but not as big as we perceive.
I'm not from the US, but over here (Finland), drink drivers are generally most dangerous to themselves. Of course there are some innocent people who are killed and injured by drink drivers, and these cases are particular tragedies, but most deaths resulting from drink driving are either people who kill themselves by stupidity, or at least consent to be in a vehicle where the driver is DUI.
Another thing I could bring up from analysis of traffic deaths is the large number of suicides we have -- about 20 % of traffic deaths; this is becoming a burden on truck drivers because they carry a lot of the emotional burden when someone decide to smash their car at high speed to an oncoming truck.
And yet another astonishing factor is deaths of "natural causes" (heart attack, stroke etc) while driving. These make up something around 10-15 % of traffic deaths here.