Every year more than 500,000 Americans crowd into hospital emergency rooms. The cause is not a germ, a virus, or a syndrome. Most victims were unlucky: they came into the path of a drunk driver, one who may have chatted coherently, maybe even walked a more-or-less straight line.
Other victims — just as unlucky — were the drivers themselves. One in three Americans is statistically fated to be affected directly or indirectly by drunk driving.
The prognosis is grim. Some victims — 13,000 in 2007 — die. Some recover after months of rehabilitation. But many survivors live compromised lives.
The obvious solution is prevention, and the nation has embraced a slew of preventive measures.
Teenagers, for instance, are prime offenders. Armed with a new license — and high on more than a few beers — teenagers regularly pile into cars for joyrides that segue into dirges.
School systems stage horrific lectures, complete with empty coffins, on the consequences of driving drunk. At mandatory assemblies, police officers warn students that they could end up in those coffins. Parents host post-prom parties to keep drinkers off the road.
Bars often cut drinkers off, with early “last calls” for people at the cusp of inebriation (a difficult cusp to gauge). Billboards plead: “Friends don’t let friends drive home drunk.” Movies will show a heavy drinker giving a friend the car keys.
Governments too have been active. Some states use roadblocks to nab drivers who are patently weaving in and out. But the roadblocks are not everywhere. (One estimate holds that a “first-time offender” has driven drunk 87 times previously.) Besides, roadblocks don’t capture the person whom nobody would call drunk — his or her reflexes are just a tad too slow to avoid an accident. States legislate minimum ages for buying alcohol.
Finally, each year the police arrest roughly 1.4 million people for “driving under the influence.” Courts fine them, jail them, take away their licenses. But since drivers depend on cars to get them to work, many people drive without licenses. And many people, even after fines, drive drunk.
To pare that figure, the automobile manufacturers association has proposed its own remedy: a passive alcohol-detection system. We already have interlocks, in which a would-be driver breathes into a tube. If the tube detects too much alcohol, the car won’t start.
The interlocks don’t rely on the acuity of a host, bartender or drinker to judge sobriety. Of 1 million convictions each year, courts have mandated 145,000 interlocks for drivers.
This is not a surefire solution: some ingenious drivers enlist “designated breathers” to start their cars. But in New Mexico, where one conviction saddles a driver with an interlock, officials report a 30 percent decrease in alcohol-fueled accidents.
Passive interlocks — in which the car “senses” the level of alcohol in the driver — promise to reduce the carnage even more. The auto industry proposes spending $30 million to develop such a system.
The hospitality industry is screaming “foul.” In this brave new world, fewer restaurant-goers would drink wine — at least that third glass — with their meals. Fewer dinner party hosts would serve after-dinner cordials. In bars, darts games would end early, as drinkers called it quits. The hospitality industry would lose money.
Maybe so. But the nation would save on medical bills, the courts would free up their dockets, and millions of families would be spared lifetimes of grief. •
Joan Retsinas is the managing editor of Medicine & Health /Rhode Island, a monthly journal of the Rhode Island Medical Society.
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