Tis the season .... for drunk drivers?

[Rdslvr04]

Did not want to post this but, after the previous post http://www.twtex.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100088, I thought I should.

While I'm okay tnx, I was knocked off my bike the other day while I was waiting at a red light. Even though I obsessively and compulsively check my mirrors I did not see that clearly intoxicated cager that rear ended me.

On the whole I was luck and is one more reason why I ride ATGATT.

Please be careful, those drunken idiots are out there and its the season to be sauced.

 

[garfey]

Deleted - got a dupe, somehow, likely due to thinking about distracted drivers.

 

[garfey]

... Please be careful, those drunken idiots are out there and its the season to be sauced.

And, while we're at it, let's not forget those folk, probably "driving" a 3-ton behemoth, who, bent on getting to that store to get that piece of junk, errm, ahem, present before they're all gone, already having missed out at 4 or 5 other Bastions of Capitalism, all the while yakking on a cell phone ordering takeout pizza or Kentucky Fired Chicken for supper (and juggling two or three other calls at the same time) while reaching into the rear of the minivan to slap an unruly young'un.

The "drunken idiots" are probably at least trying not to cause any sort of incident that might be noticed. The oblivious don't care.

Edit: Glad you escaped.

 

[Duke]

And, while we're at it, let's not forget those folk, probably "driving" a 3-ton behemoth, who, bent on getting to that store to get that piece of junk, errm, ahem, present before they're all gone, already having missed out at 4 or 5 other Bastions of Capitalism, all the while yakking on a cell phone ordering takeout pizza or Kentucky Fired Chicken for supper (and juggling two or three other calls at the same time) while reaching into the rear of the minivan to slap an unruly young'un.

The "drunken idiots" are probably at least trying not to cause any sort of incident that might be noticed. The oblivious don't care.

Edit: Glad you escaped.

Are you seriously trying to defend a drunk who CHOOSES to drive.

There is no excuse for this behavior. Drunk Driving is a choice that need not be defended or excused. We should triple or quadruple the penalties that are there today because current standards are clearly not an enough of a deterrent. Speaking as a person who received his Paramedic patch in 1989. I have seen too many fatalities and life altering injuries from this choice and 9 times out 10 the drunk is oblivious to the severity of his actions.

Rdslvr04, glad you're able to post up an share your tale. If the driver has a court date, DO attend and volunteer yourself to the DA. Depending on the case evidence he may or may not need you, but its nice to know that the "victim" is willing to speak up.

 

[garfey]

Are you seriously trying to defend a drunk who CHOOSES to drive. No.

There is no excuse for this behavior. Just as there is no excuse for the distracted soccer mom.

Drunk Driving is a choice that need not be defended or excused. Just as distracted driving is a choice that need not be defended or excused.

We should triple or quadruple the penalties that are there today because current standards are clearly not an enough of a deterrent. And we should quadruple or quintuple the penalties that there are today because current standards are clearly not enough of a deterrent.

Speaking as a person who received his Paramedic patch in 1989. I have seen too many fatalities and life altering injuries from this choice and 9 times out 10 the drunk is oblivious to the severity of his actions. You are perfectly free to choose your soapbox and, if you'll permit, I'll chose mine. Death or injury caused by an inattentive driver is death or injury caused by an inattentive driver. Period.


Rdslvr04, glad you're able to post up an share your tale. Yea,verily!

If the driver has a court date, DO attend and volunteer yourself to the DA. Depending on the case evidence he may or may not need you, but its nice to know that the "victim" is willing to speak up. I can take no exception to this exhortation. If folk injured or damaged by texting teeny-boppers or harrassed housewives would take the same action we'd all be much, much, much safer.

 

[Ouroboros]

I did some quick fact finding and it appears that 30-40% of fatal car accidents involve alcohol impaired drivers. That leaves the remainder of the fatalities non-alcohol related. What I was trying to find and was unsuccessful is what are the percentage of alcohol impaired drivers on the road at any given time?

 

[lowrider]

I did a little fact finding also. It appears that 100% of the people living on the planet will one day die. I can't verify this, but it appears to be fact.

 

[tshelfer]

Garfey, clearly there are numerous causes for distraction accidents - and I've been hit that way myself a couple of times. I'll suggest, though, that we respect the OP's intent for this thread.

As long as I can remember - and I've been driving since 1969 - alcohol has been a factor in around 50% of all motor fatalities. It goes up or down a little, but sadly, it never goes away. I taught Defensive Driving in 1972-73. At that time, not only did the 50% stat exist, there was another, even more startling stat - 75% of all pedestrian deaths involved alcohol (not necessarily the driver, by the way).

One of the better things the US has done, over the past 4 decades, is to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit from 1.0 to .8 (or .1 to .08, depending on your metrics), which is in keeping with almost all European nations (who have more than their share of alcohol accidents to deal with). Back when most states were still at 1.0, Car & Driver Magazine decided to write an investigative article. Armed with a rented test track, various configurations of orange cones, a stable of test vehicles, and what they described as "each editor's favorite beverage", they went to work. They did baseline testing on their closed course. They knocked back a couple, measured their alcohol level using Breathalyzers (would you trust Brock Yates with a needle & syringe?), and repeated the driving events. This went on for a matter of hours. By the end, they were drunk, sick, having no fun at all, and hopelessly incapable of negotiating the simplest maneuvers without murdering a few cones. During the exercise, not one of them ever hit the 1.0 limit of being legally drunk. And that's how Car & Driver Magazine became active in a campaign to lower the legal limit in all states. I've looked for a copy of that article over the years, but never found it. Somewhere in 1976, I believe.

While I was stationed in Germany, at New Year's Eve, many posts very strongly encouraged their people to plan their celebrations so that they slept over, rather than driving home. That was to protect them from themselves, and from others.

Over the years, I've lost several friends in motor accidents (always in cars, not bikes), and without having tracked it, I'd say the 50% statistic has been alive and well.

 

[Meriden]

Please be careful, those drunken idiots are out there and its the season to be sauced.

Point well taken. It tis the season for holiday parties and it will remain this way until the great national hangover sets in on January the 2nd.

This isn't an "either/or" kind of problem. Both drunk driving and distracted driving are a real threat to motorcyclists. Certainly one is better documented and the other is just being understood, but it's prudent to treat that car weaving across the stripe as dangerous regardless of the cause.

 

[garfey]

I did some quick fact finding and it appears that 30-40% of fatal car accidents involve alcohol impaired drivers. That leaves the remainder of the fatalities non-alcohol related. What I was trying to find and was unsuccessful is what are the percentage of alcohol impaired drivers on the road at any given time?

I don't know either but some 20yrs ago I heard (from a retired Louisiana Trooper, IIRC) that south of Baton Rouge usually ~25% of drivers were over the legal limit and that was 0.1mg/dl then, also IIRC.

 

[M38A1]

.....Back when most states were still at 1.0, Car & Driver Magazine decided to write an investigative article. Armed with a rented test track, various configurations of orange cones, a stable of test vehicles, and what they described as "each editor's favorite beverage", they went to work. They did baseline testing on their closed course. They knocked back a couple, measured their alcohol level using Breathalyzers (would you trust Brock Yates with a needle & syringe?), and repeated the driving events. This went on for a matter of hours. By the end, they were drunk, sick, having no fun at all, and hopelessly incapable of negotiating the simplest maneuvers without murdering a few cones. During the exercise, not one of them ever hit the 1.0 limit of being legally drunk. And that's how Car & Driver Magazine became active in a campaign to lower the legal limit in all states. I've looked for a copy of that article over the years, but never found it. Somewhere in 1976, I believe.

Searching.....
Found this C&D research on Texting while Driving (impaired and not)

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/texting-while-driving-how-dangerous-is-it


Still looking for the 1976 study...
ETA: An article of that topic isn't listed on the front cover for all of 1975/1976/1977 issues (http://backissues.com/publications/Car-and-Driver-1976)



.

 

[garfey]

Garfey, clearly there are numerous causes for distraction accidents - and I've been hit that way myself a couple of times. I'll suggest, though, that we respect the OP's intent for this thread.
*snip*

Agreed.
My experience does not mirror yours though I've been licensed since 1960 and driving for ~2yrs before that. There was, for practical purposes, no traffic on the roads back then and things are certainly not that way now.

My personal accident experience, to date, consists of hitting a calf in the butt in the middle of the night outside Kemmerer, WY in August, 1967 (trust me, you do not want to do that in country where they roll up the sidewalks and shut off the water about dark - the first carwash I found open was in Idaho Falls, ID, and it took a lot of quarters to clean that mess off and out of the car. Did I mention it was in August, as in HOT? Did I mention that there was calf poop all down in the air intakes so I drove that stretch windows up, A/C and vents shut as tight as I could get 'em.) and allowing a deer to kill himself on my Road Glide's stbd hiway peg mount then spin around and mangle my little trailer. That was over by Toledo Bend, again at night, in April, '08. That's it. I've been lucky. Or something.

All of which proves nothing but you can bet your bippy you won't find ol' garf out riding around at night on holiday weekends unless a friend has to go to the horsepistol or something like that and, if I can avoid, it you won't find me out during daytime on holiday weekends, either, unless I run out of Blue Bell or some other catastrophe like that.

 

[tshelfer]

Please be careful, those drunken idiots are out there and its the season to be sauced.

Sadly, the problem with drunken idiots is that the vast majority are not idiots. Most drunk drivers are not crazy, raging drunks or homicidal maniacs. Most are first-offenders, and most are, in general, about as responsible as you and me in most respects.

The problem is that alcohol impairs judgment. And while I don't know how to measure it, I can see a correlation between deteriorating judgment and deteriorating motor skills and reaction times. Which means, the less likely you are to be able to handle your car, the more likely you are to make a bad decision and try to drive it anyway. And this is how otherwise good, moral, law-abiding citizens end up behind bars on DWI charges - or sometimes, vehicular manslaughter charges.

I was a drug/alcohol counselor in Germany while I was in the Army. I couldn't tell you how many times I saw this. Or how many times I saw a career jeopardized or wrecked by a night at the NCO club followed by a really bad judgment call.

 

[whoa]

What I was trying to find and was unsuccessful is what are the percentage of alcohol impaired drivers on the road at any given time?

I can't speak to statistics, but I can say in Austin there isn't a time of day or day of week a solid DWI arrest cannot be made. Impaired drivers are our BOLO.

 

[zukidave]

TBH I'm getting more worryed about people driving phone booth's and key board's
then drunk driver's.
Yesterday I rode N.Lamar from Braker to 183 and I'd bet that over 50%
of the car's around me the driver was on the phone or texting.

I have found that with the baffle out of the header drop
two gear's and ride beside the driver's door and the noise will stop
the phone call.

 

[focus frenzy]

I have found that with the baffle out of the header drop

two gear's and ride beside the driver's door and the noise will stop

the phone call.

I have found that a down shift or two to get rpm up followed by flipping the kill switch for a couple seconds before flipping the switch back on, makes them drop the phone and wet themselves!

 

[Not Dave]

As for people driving drunk, it happens every day from every section of society. From the teenager to the Travis County District Attorney. Alcoholics don't choose a time or place to get intoxicated, they do it when they can with no thought towards anyone else but themselves.

Lots of us have driven impaired in our lives. Inexcusable. It's hard enough driving sober nowadays having to watch out for others either distracted or impaired.

As mentioned by the OP you can look in your mirrors but it only takes a split second to NOT notice that one car coming up on you as you look away. Life has dangers all about. Most cyclists are more careful in their travels than motorists in cages.

I'm glad Rdslvr04 is OK after being tagged from behind. We've heard of both sides were there's minimal to no injury or heavy to fatal injury. You are in control of yourself and that's it. Do the best you can and live by the Golden Rule. If you don't want a drunk to tag you or your family on the road then if you get impaired don't get behind the wheel yourself.

 

[KenH]

TBH I'm getting more worryed about people driving phone booth's and key board's
then drunk driver's.
Yesterday I rode N.Lamar from Braker to 183 and I'd bet that over 50%
of the car's around me the driver was on the phone or texting.

I have found that with the baffle out of the header drop
two gear's and ride beside the driver's door and the noise will stop
the phone call.

I have found that a down shift or two to get rpm up followed by flipping the kill switch for a couple seconds before flipping the switch back on, makes them drop the phone and wet themselves!

HaaHaaHaaaHaa! You rock! Driving under a 12-lane bridge in New Jersey in the far left with a young man of color in the far right texting, and nobody else in sight. Three seconds of 180db air horns. Phone went out the window. LMFAOed.

 

[Meriden]

Reading the California Lane Splitting report this morning started me to digging around in the latest (2013) traffic statistic for our state. Some findings seemed more relevant to this thread.

For example: Drunk drivers mostly kill themselves and their passengers. Fatalities in Crashes Involving DUI (Alcohol)

Depending on how you slice it, there were 25,479 DUI related crashes and 95,170 distracted driver related crashes. Harris county leads people to drink while Bexar county leads the state in distractions. Distracted Driver by County DUI Crashes by County

For those who studied statistics under Darrell Huff, the safest time to drive is during a dust storm. Weather Conditions for Crashes


Christmas/New Years are almost as bad as Memorial Day. Fatalities During the Holiday Period

There is a passel of details here:Crash Contributing Factors

 

[KenH]

Heard on the radio today that at any given time 3% of drivers are legally impaired because of alcohol, another 3% are under the influence of some alcohol, equal numbers using intoxicants other than alcohol, and those numbers can triple at certain times of day, especially on weekends and holidays. That would put 36% of drivers under the influence of some kind of intoxicant, 18% legally impaired, at peak times on holidays and weekends.

An equal number are driving distracted, but there are some who are both under the influence and distracted, so the total of compromised drivers runs 50-60% during peak periods.

 

[focus frenzy]

I can see that, folks who can't keep it between the lines is pretty much normal on my drive home at midnight.

I have even managed to take a few off the road for a short bit.

Once it was clearly a very very slow night for the Fort Worth police department because every last one of them showed up when I called 911 on a very drunk very swervy dude.

 

[hizzo3]

Cell phones are no better than drinking and driving. As much as I hate to say we need something more stringent on texting and driving, I've had enough with the irresponsibility of the common citizen. Maybe we will see something in the next state session.

Regarding DUI/DWI, the big cities don't care as much as the smaller towns. My brother had his car run over by a dodge ram with giant tires one time. He finally got the driver to pull over. Once out of the car, the other guy was so drunk he couldn't walk straight, so my brother called 9-1-1 on it. The guy jets after about 30 mins. Shortly after a DFD ambulance pulls up to check out my nice to make sure she is OK (suffers from autism). Anyway, my brother asks where the cops are because the other guy was drunk and left, and the medic said cops aren't coming, they don't come for minor fender benders.

Another time my dad called in a wrong way driver... The person from 911 said no police were in the area and he'd be long gone before they could catch him.... So my dad did a u-turn and followed the drunk driver AGAINST the advisement of the operator. But they did get the idiot pulled over.

I know big cities are strained... But it would only take a few strong campaigns and some good media attention to help reduce it.

 

[SparkyBlue]

I believe drunk and drinking drivers will always be with us unless some kind of passive technology arrives to disable the vehicle. My thinking about avoiding drunks is mostly of the common sense variety. Timing; Friday afternoons, Sat nights, holiday weekends. Distracted drivers another story.... still working on that one.

 

[DaveC]

What leads to this behavior? Lets start with 5 star crash rating, yep, "I ride in a crash proof car" is what the mentality is. The ads should state, "the best crash protection you have is you!" Even with "safer" cars the death toll rises, that is because people have a false sense of "safety". The crash test are done at 45mph, most head on collisions have a combined speed of over 100 mph, do the math, death is usually the final answer. So many factors but the answer is not a single fix, DUI is not deterred even when the penalty is death, the stats show that. SO stiffer sentence well be ineffective, FYI.

 

[Meriden]

I believe drunk and drinking drivers will always be with us unless some kind of passive technology arrives to disable the vehicle. My thinking about avoiding drunks is mostly of the common sense variety. Timing; Friday afternoons, Sat nights, holiday weekends. Distracted drivers another story.... still working on that one.

Timing works. Avoiding entertainment, sports venues and shopping districts when possible is another strategy.

As for legislative remedies, the legislature passed a ban on texting and driving only for it to be vetoed. While that would not have stopped people from texting, I think it would have made texters a little more vigilant. Alcohol sales are not going away, but some localities have laws that increase the DUI problem. For example the City of Arlington once allowed selling liquor by the glass, but not package stores. It was illegal for a sober person to by a bottle of liquor and take it home, but anyone could drink in one of a hundred bars and restaurants before driving home.

One surprising thing in the data was that more crashes occurred in the category Speeding (under limit) rather than Speeding (over limit.) Years ago a friend in law enforcement said that you could spot a drunk because they often failed to turn on their headlights or failed to drive at the posted speed. My biggest complaint with texters is the fact they won't keep up with traffic.