In Other News, New Study Finds That The Sun Rises In The East

Captain Obvious called, and they want their study back.  Namely, the one that found that more frequent police traffic stops in general leads to less drunk driving.  In fact, communities with very few traffic stops had a rate of impaired driving that was as much as two to three times higher than in communities with more frequent traffic stops.  The same was true for the intensity of DUI saturation patrols, which, interestingly enough, were found to be quite superior to roadblock-style sobriety checkpoints in this study.

Additionally, they also found that the number of DUI arrests, after other variables controlled for, was also inversely correlated with drunk driving despite the chicken-or-egg problem inherent in this measure.  Thus, on balance, the greater the probability of arrest if one does drive drunk in a given community, the less people are willing to drive drunk in that community.

Again, we see that the perception of swift and certain punishment--that is, greater odds of getting caught--does indeed act as a robust deterrent for drunk driving.  Gee, who woulda thunk it?

So how about the following thought experiment:  if the drinking age was suddenly lowered to 18 overnight, how would police respond now in 2018?  Most likely, they would become more active in cracking down on DUI, fearing an increase in such among young people.  And that crackdown would not only prevent the feared short-term increase in traffic casualties, but also have a spillover that would reduce traffic casualties among all ages.  That is the most logical prediction of the net effect of doing so nowadays, as it's clearly not the 1970s anymore.

It's time to finish the job.   So what are we waiting for?