Michigan DUI Statistics
According to MADD, 30 percent of all Americans will be involved in an alcohol related crash at some point in their lives. Sobering statistic.
If you think about it, it probably is about right. How many people do you know who have either been in a DUI related accident, or are close with somebody who has. I can't think of a single person I know that is more than 4 degrees separated from a serious DUI accident or fatality.
Consider the bolded quote in the excerpt below:
Commentary: No defense if others die | detnews.com | The Detroit News: "Statistics from Mothers Against Drunk Driving say about 3 in 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives.
Last year, those odds resulted in the death of 317 people in the state. They died horrible and gruesome deaths with no good-byes to those left behind.
If the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results, our failure to combat drunken driving is beyond insane.
Police say less than an hour before the crash, the same pickup bounced off the guard rails at a McDonald's drive-through on Van Dyke in Warren; the driver was allegedly so smashed he was no more capable of operating a vehicle than a kid ramming bumper cars at an amusement park.
'He was that drunk,' a State Police officer said. 'He just didn't realize what he was doing.'"
By that definition of insanity, one could coherently argue that the DUI laws on the books in every state are insane. The lawmakers keep the same laws or make them though each year. Prosecutors keep on doing their thing. Cops do theirs. DUI defense lawyers do theirs. And yet the problem and the statistics don't shift much.
Perhaps these statistics dictate that it is time for a fresh look at how we deal with the problem of DUI in our justice system?
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