Originally Posted by Roche
Hey, that means 60% of traffic fatalities are caused by sober drivers.
Aren't statistics fun?
Yep... nailed it. Drink-driving gets the headlines because drunk people are perceived as social pariahs when they offend. "Innocent" people like the soccer mum who runs over and kills a child at school, or the granny who knocks over and kills a bicyclist, or the driver who wipes out a family in a head-on because he dropped his big Mac... cause more damage, but their actions are deemed as "accidents" and therefore are acceptable in many western societies.
The issues are hugely complex, and are based on community attitudes to "freedom" of behaviour. It's a matter for the community to decide when that freedom is in fact out of control and verges on anarchy. In most democratic countries, it can do that through the ballot box. Is it capable of doing that in America (and I also have to say, in Australia)?