Are All Drunk Drivers Dangerous?

Drunk driving is a subject on which it is nearly impossible to get any objective information without running into a hailstorm of ideological flak. Ask the question, "How badly do drunk people drive?" and the kindest response you get is "dangerously badly." (Most people look at you as if you had grown antlers.) But is it true for everyone? And how -- in the absence of any realistic studies--does anyone know?

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My 60's generation grew up when driving when legally drunk was a common occurrence. Each of us college students drove thousands of miles quite drunk, and none that I know of, have been killed or injured, or caused injury to others. That fact doesn't prove anything, because drunk driving DOES kill an enormous number of people every year -- so it is obviously very dangerous behavior for many people. But is it very dangerous for everybody? We all got home all right. How -- without being attacked as criminally insane -- can one find out? And how badly does the average experienced drunk driver actually drive?

Two studies come to mind that illustrate the difficulty in finding out. The first, undertaken in the 1960s (if memory serves) was undertaken by Car & Driver Magazine. Experienced drivers and drinkers were sent around a closed race course to establish their fastest time around the track. They were then served an ounce of alcohol, and sent around again. This was repeated until they were quite drunk, and their driving skill dropped significantly.

Not surprisingly (to drinker-drivers) the drivers were initially able to go faster around the track after one or two drinks. This fact is instantly pounced on by the anti-drunk driver coterie as "proving" they have become more "reckless." But the test did not measure recklessness -- it measured exactly driving skill -- with the blasphemous result that a little bit of alcohol made these experienced drinker-drivers better drivers on the race course.

Now, given this hugely politically incorrect result, how do the anti-drunk driving pressure groups counter it? First, they pressure the hell out of the magazine for being irresponsible -- enough so that the editors rued the day that this test was published. ("In war truth is the first casualty.")

But the next proactive step was to conduct a counter-tests to "prove" the opposite. So General Motors had inexperienced young drivers who were also inexperienced drinkers attempt a similar test. And guess what (surprise, surprise) -- these young inexperienced drinker/drivers fared worse on the road as soon as they drank alcohol! But the General Motors test was too transparent a ruse, and convinced no one. Thus other, more rigorous tests were conducted. The most recent one I could find is a lulu.

It shows that nothing has changed (except the ideologues against drunk driving have completely taken over the arena). Here are some results from a test conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation, published in August 2000, called "Driver Characteristics and Impairment at Various BACs." (DOT HS 809075). See if you can spot the sneaky equivocations.

"It should be noted that although the sample reflects possibly 80-90% of alcohol consumers who drive, it did not include drivers under age 19 or over 70. Furthermore, no very heavy drinkers or alcohol abusers were accepted as subjects, (emphasis added) and the maximum BAC examined was 0.10%."

[In other words, exactly those people who are skilled at drunk driving (and claim they are safe drivers) were specifically excluded from a test to see how unsafe drunk drivers are!!! (Lordy, where do these sociologists get their license to practice?)]

"A study by Moskowitz, Daily and Henderson(1974) supported this finding with a comparison of extremely heavy drinkers (recruited from bars) and moderate drinkers. They reported that heavy drinkers were less impaired than moderate drinkers at equal BACs (emphasis added) on several psychomotor tasks. Also, a mean ethanol clearance rate of 0.020% per hour for the heavy drinkers, in comparison to a rate of 0.017% per hour for the moderate drinkers, demonstrated a physiological difference between the heavy and moderate drinkers."

[Here then, in their own study, is an admission that they were testing the wrong people. And this study also shows that experienced drunks get less impaired with the same percent of alcohol, and get sober faster than their neophyte brethren.]

Then there is the nature of the set-up that supposedly tests driving skill. As usual, it is game designed not to test actual driving skill -- because those results might not be palatable. Rather, it is designed to make the testees fail.

The following SIM response measures were analyzed:

Reaction time to peripheral signals (sec)
Incorrect responses to peripheral signals (number) [In these two "tests", the drunk drivers had to interpret information flashed onto their side mirrors. How this skill relates to real-life driving safety is nowhere spelled out.]
Speed deviation (mph)
Lane position deviation (ft)
Times over speed limit (number)
[This part of the computer game is mildly relevant to driving, except that no one has shown that adhering with Stalinist precision to some artificial speed limit is more dangerous than mildly exceeding it. The "lane deviation" sound ominous, until you examine the data and see that the sober drivers deviated 1-1/2 feet and the drunks 2-feet. Wow, what a threat to life and limb.]
Collisions (number)
[Finally this kicker "Collisions." This sounds really serious. Of course the sociologists really manage to make a complete farce of this metric. The sober drivers had 20 collisions per test!! The drunks had 40. Wow -- that test REALLY corresponds to everyday driving.]

So we are left with two major points:

Firstly, there is no question -- none whatsoever -- that drunk-driving is an extremely serious social problem, which causes the wanton slaughter of thousands of people every year -- so many of them innocent passengers or passers-by -- and so many of them our almost-adults. This essayist recognizes that drunk driving is extremely dangerous, that society cannot sit back and do nothing, and does not suggest anyone should drive when drunk. And secondly, because it so serious a problem, the politics surrounding the subject have made it impossible to find out how some experienced drunk drivers seem to be able to get home safely, year after year. The answer to that mystery is still truly "forbidden knowledge."

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For some really depressing examples of justice and fair play ignored, see: Lawrence Taylor's blog describing the machinations of the anti-drunk-driving industry.

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More anti-drinking propaganda

The first line of script in the "Before any consumption" is the normal script of an unnamed subject; the second line is my own script.

Note how after the "effects of 4 drinks," the script of the unnamed person deteriorates markedly; yet notice how my own script -- after 8 full glasses of wine in about an hour-- is hardly different at all. Who did these researchers use as a subject, and why is their example not only so different from my own, but supports the regnant PC stance? Clearly, if they had used me, they wouldn't have got any more funding to do politically correct studies on the effects of alcohol. "Forbidden Knowledge" strikes again.

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Finally--something sensible in print about drunk driving:

Double Trouble Behind the Wheel
By John O'Neil, NY Times, 9/02/03
Fatigue and even a legally permissible amount of alcohol can combine dangerously for drivers, a British study has found, especially because the young men being tested appeared to be unaware of their increased impairment.
After getting five hours of sleep, 12 men who had the equivalent of two glasses of beer with lunch drifted out of their lanes an average of 32 times in a simulated two-hour highway drive.
When they were sleepy but had not had alcohol, they drifted out 18 times, and when they had the drinks but were rested, they strayed 15 times.
When they were rested and had not drunk alcohol they left their lanes only seven times, according to the study, which was published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a journal of the British Medical Association.
The study's lead researcher, Dr. Jim Home of Loughborough University in Leicestershire, said the drivers' blood-alcohol levels had fallen to less than half of the legal limit in Britain, 0.08, by the start of the test and to almost nothing by the end of the simulation.
"Sleepy drivers having consumed some alcohol may not realize how bad their driving is," Dr. Home said. The study used men with an average age of 22 as the subjects because 90 percent of British crashes listed as sleep-related are caused by men, and half of those are caused by men under 30.
"Advice: don't drink alcohol and drive, especially if you are sleepy," Dr. Home said.
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From www.activistcash.com -- a website dedicated to uncovering who is behind tax-exempt charities, foundations, etc.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) began with the admirable goal of reducing drunk-driving traffic fatalities. The organization’s first 10 years were productive ones: while MADD grew exponentially, America saw a remarkable decline in drunk-driving auto accidents. The unintended consequence, of course, is that MADD has essentially outgrown its original mission. Since the drunk-driving problem has been generally reduced to “a hard core of alcoholics who do not respond to public appeal,” as past MADD president Katherine Prescott told the New York Times, MADD has redefined its mission. The original goal of going after “drunk” drivers has now been replaced by the goal of eliminating any drinking and driving.

If truth-in-advertising laws applied to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, its name would be changed to Mothers Against All Drinking of Any Kind. MADD’s crusade has turned into a prohibitionist movement. Instead of targeting repeat offenders and those who are truly too impaired to drive, the twenty-first-century MADD endorses policies that would target social drinkers.

[See more on MADDs mad drive to fill its coffers at: http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/17

[Here is a listing of DUI lawyers, searchable by zip code: http://www.dui1.com/ ]

Here are some references to driving under the influence of marijuana: http://www.iowatelecom.net/~sharkhaus/driving.html ]

Addendum 26 Nov 04:

Here is what the NY Times has to say on the received wisdom of alcohol killing off brain cells:

<<...there remain hazards from indulging in too much alcohol — including, of course, hangovers. But one thing people who drink socially probably don't need to worry about is sacrificing brain cells in the process.

The research indicates that adults who drink in moderation are not in danger of losing brain cells.

The notion that alcohol snuffs out brain cells has been around for years. Many studies have linked drinking with mental deficits, and long-term damage from years of heavy drinking has been well documented. The developing brain is particularly vulnerable, some studies show, putting teenagers and unborn children at greatest risk.

But Dr. Roberta J. Pentney, a former researcher at the State University of New York at Buffalo, found that alcohol disrupts brain function in adults by damaging message-carrying dendrites on neurons in the cerebellum, a structure involved in learning and motor coordination. This reduces communication between neurons, alters their structure and causes some of the impairment associated with intoxication. It does not kill off entire cells, however.

A study in 1999 that examined the brains of alcoholics appeared to confirm this. Published in the journal Neuroscience, the research found that subjects who developed Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a severe disorder that ravages the memory and stems from a thiamine deficiency associated with alcoholism, had a marked reduction in cell density in the cerebellum.

But there was little difference between alcoholics who did not develop the syndrome and normal subjects, suggesting that it was largely a lack of thiamine in the Wernicke-Korsakoff patients that killed off their cells.

Other studies, including one published in The British Medical Journal in 1997, have produced similar findings.

THE BOTTOM LINE Alcohol may not kill brain cells per se, but it can impair brain function, among other things.

ANAHAD O 'CONNOR scitimes@nytimes.com