In May the National Transportation Safety Board released 19 recommendations to eliminate impaired driving. This post is the last in a five-part series examining the NTSB’s five safety issue areas.
In the past four posts I’ve explored the NTSB’s recommended countermeasures to affect “meaningful reductions in alcohol-impaired driving crashes.” These include:
- Lowering the legal BAC limit from 0.08 to 0.05.
- Providing high-visibility enforcement of DWI laws.
- Expanding the use of in-vehicle devices that prevent operation by an impaired driver.
- Addressing the challenges of repeat offenders by expanding the use of DWI Courts and 24/7 Sobriety Programs.
Reducing impaired driving is a complex problem that defies a simple solution. Rather, as this graphic illustrates, the NTSB’s recommendations are designed to work in tandem to address different groups of impaired drivers: first-time, repeat, and hardcore.
But how do you know if you’ve achieved “meaningful reductions” in alcohol-impaired crashes without establishing clear goals and measures of success?
To ensure they have a “performance-based, data-driven system,” the NTSB recommends that states:
- Set specific and measurable targets for reducing impaired driving fatalities and injuries.
- List these targets in their impaired driving prevention plan or highway safety plan.
- Provide a mechanism for regularly assessing the success of implemented countermeasures and determining whether the targets have been met.
In Europe, where a number of countries have taken aggressive measures and set clear goals, deaths due to alcohol-impaired driving have decreased by more than 50%.
Some argue that setting goals requires an investment of human and financial resources that states cannot afford. Although many states are struggling financially, there is no excuse not to ensure they are investing their limited funds wisely.
As a mother of a young child, I want to know that each state’s substance-impaired driving programs are working. I want to know that the roadways are safe for me and my family. I want to know that states are investing in programs that are making a difference, and not those that provide political cover. I want to know these answers for my home state of Virginia, as well as the rest of the country.
The NTSB has set the goal of reaching zero deaths and serious injuries from substance-impaired driving. Let’s do the work needed to know if we are making progress toward reaching this goal.
While we all would like to know that the road is safe while we are driving, I don’t believe we can ever truly feel 100% safe. No matter how many laws we make against drinking and driving and no matter how many cops we have out looking for drunk drivers, people will always break the law and do this. Time and time again people go out and party and do not think of how they will be getting home, they then get into their car while drunk just wanting to go home, and that’s when bad things happen. There is really no way to prevent people from driving under the influence.
Now this does not mean that by doing the things you stated that we couldn’t reduce the amount of DUI incidents, because I truly believe that these things would. But, “Some of the most critical decisions occur early in the series. These include decisions about taking part in events where drinking will occur and transportation to get to the event. Decisions made at this point can lead to conditions that make alcohol impaired driving a virtual certainty.”(Cosgrove,1995) This means if someone wants to go out and have a good time then they will and before they realize it they end up drinking and have no one that can drive them home. If someone is in an unknown house or place, they will not want to stay the night and it ultimately ends with them trying to drive home. People make bad decisions and alcohol makes these bad decisions even easier to make. There are too many reasons why people drink and drive to stop it with a little extra patrol and a couple more harsh laws. It can certainly help, but I do not believe anything will actually prevent DUI incidents altogether.