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I agree. This is a typical muddying of the waters. The problem is drinking and driving, so why focus on the drinking part instead of the driving part? I don't know what the legal alcohol limit is in the US, but for me it's something like 0.08%, which means about three glasses of wine within an hour of driving. I don't know about others, but I would not sit behind the wheel with that much alcohol in my body, even though I could get away with it legally. I know that after three drinks within an hour I'm impaired. There is nothing stopping the government from lowering the limit for everybody and actually enforcing the law. Young people aren't the only ones who drink and drive.

The article compares the statistics from the early 1970s and the late 80s. That's not a very meaningful comparison. The 1970 were the height of the baby-boom, counter-culture, etc. For all its virtues, it had a lot of irresponsible behavior in general. Also, the thinking about drinking and driving was completely different. I had an acquaintance, who would arrive to any party in those days with a bottle of whiskey, drink it all, and then drive home. Sometimes he had no recollection of how he got home.

Also in the early 1970s, my university had a research project. We were asked to come up with ideas on how to get people not to drink and drive. Naturally, some people suggested that the limits should be enforced. The professor who led the project explained that that wouldn't be easy because the policemen simply don't enforce drinking laws for the simple reason that they too drink and drive. That was the 1970s. Of course, few people wore seatbelts even if their cars were equipped with them and many of them weren't, and there were cars on the roads rated as "unsafe at any speed."

We have come a long way from the 70s both in terms of safety features on cars and in terms of how we view drunk driving, so comparing statistics from then to now is like comparing apples and oranges.

I have some questions to those on Propeller who are over 21: Have you ever driven a car or boat or any motorized vehicle when you had consumed alcohol prior to driving? Have you ever driven when you probably had an alcohol level above the legal limit? If the answer is yes to either of these questions, then it's perhaps your own personal behavior that you should take a look at. Remember, you are the one who is setting an example to those under 21.

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