At The End Of The Day, We're Not Japan

There are a lot of wonderful things about Japan.  The culture, the food, the technology, the games, the general lack of street crime and violence, and so on are all great.  But at the same time, there are some things about Japan that would absolutely NEVER fly in America, and for very good reason.

Take their extremely strict (even by global standards, not just by American standards!) approach to DUI, for example:

• The BAC limit for driving is a mere 0.03%, where as little as ONE standard drink will almost certainly put you over the limit for at least an hour or two (effectively zero tolerance).  For ALL ages, period.
• Penalties can range from up to three years in prison, a $5000 fine, and losing one's license for at least three months (which wouldn't matter if one is locked up for three years).  And you will almost certainly lose your job as well.  Again, for as little as ONE drink before driving.  OUCH!
• And if you have the audacity to exceed 0.04% when driving, which translates to one or at most two standard drinks in a couple hours or so (depending on body weight, gender, time, pace of drinking, food, etc.), it gets even worse still:  five years in prison, a $10,000 fine, and cancellation of one's license altogether.  DOUBLE OUCH!
• Above that second threshold, though, there are no further graduated penalties at the margin:  driving after one or two drinks is treated the same as driving after ten.
• But wait, there's more!  As if that wasn't bad enough, it's NOT only the driver who is on the hook for such harsh penalties.  Anyone who allows someone to get behind the wheel after drinking even ONE drink, including the passengers and anyone who served the driver, such as in restaurants and bars, and anyone who provided a vehicle to the driver, will also face roughly the same penalties.  It is collective responsibility taken to the extreme, basically.
• Oh, and this also applies to bicycle riders as well, by the way.  (But hey, at least they don't apply it to pedestrians though, as there are no laws against drunk walking or public drunkenness there.)
• And this is all very strictly enforced, of course.

In a word, WOW!  They are so strict that bars and restaurants will simply not let you order even ONE beer unless they confirm with you first that you will not be driving home.  They even have "skipper" taxi services for hire with two drivers:  one to drive your vehicle home, and one to pick up the first driver afterwards.  (Or sometimes just one driver with an e-bike to ride themself back, and then onto the next customer.) And the popularity of non-alcoholic beers and wines has predictably skyrocketed in Japan since these laws were passed in 2002 and 2007.  

And yes, it is true that Japan saw alcohol-related traffic fatalities drop by over half instantly, and by up to 80 percent over the next few years following the passage of these super-strict laws.  Significant decreases in such casualties were seen after each of both the 2002 (i.e. lowering the BAC limit from 0.05% to 0.03%) and 2007 (penalties for passengers, servers, and vehicle lenders) law changes, and both also involved a great stiffening of DUI penalties in general, as opposed to merely making the law harder to satisfy.  So on its own terms, it seems to have worked wonders, at least on the surface.  But at what cost, really?  

Baby, meet bathwater, basically.

Try to implement such a draconian law over here in the USA today, especially the part about punishing servers and passengers, and the very best you could hope for in terms of unintended consequences in our culture would be a deep-freeze chilling effect on what is left of in-person socialization, and it goes downhill from there.  

In any case, such a law is WAY outside of the Overton window for an individualistic society (not to mention a car culture with vast rural areas!) like the USA, so the odds of this ever happening here are quite slim to none indeed.  It is truly un-American, to say the least.  But both less extreme (in terms of criminal penalties) AND more extreme (in terms of lower BAC limits) versions of this have of course been applied to Americans under the arbitrary age of 21 for decades now:  just think of zero tolerance laws and social host liability laws.  And internal possession laws, constructive possession laws, use and lose laws, keg registration, and other face-saving ancillary laws to prop up the failed experiment that is the 21 drinking age as well.

Oh, and even with this law in place for two decades, Japan STILL has stubbornly refused to lower the drinking age to 18.  Even after lowering the age of majority from 20 to 18 effective in 2022, they still kept the drinking age and smoking age at 20, because reasons.  And that whole thing about easily getting beer and sake in vending machines (!) for the past few decades or so?  Well, now the vending machines will need to see (and scan) some ID, at least most of them, apparently, according to Reddit.

That said, Japan is actually surprisingly lax in general by American standards about things like public drunkenness (as long as one is not being disorderly, of course), drinking in public, drinking on public transportation, and even drinking in a car (!) as long as the driver isn't drinking.  And alcohol is available almost everywhere, from convenience stores to supermarkets to vending machines and even in fast-food restaurants as well. That's largely because no liquor licenses are required for serve alcohol on-premise in Japan, and even though such licenses are required to sell alcohol for off-premise, they aren't exactly hard to get.

Twenty-One Debunked strongly opposes drunk driving, of course, but still does NOT support such an extreme approach to it like they have in Japan.  Rather, we support a graduated BAC limit of 0.05% for administrative-only penalties, 0.08% for criminal penalties, 0.15% for "aggravated DUI" criminal penalties, and a limit of 0.00% if driving recklessly, and grudgingly support 0.00-0.02% zero tolerance for young and novice drivers, ideally based on number of years of licensed driving rather than age alone.  Riding a bicycle under the influence should be a traffic violation, not a crime.  (Walking under the influence should not be illegal at all in itself, of course.)  And we believe in individual responsibility, thus the only people punished should be the drinking drivers themselves, not the passengers or servers, as that would be un-American.  Thus, we also believe that dram shop and social host liability laws should be repealed, or at least greatly watered down, as far as consenting adults are concerned.

Crack down HARD on actual drunk drivers, with sobriety checkpoints (provided that they follow the Constitution, of course) and especially roving and saturation patrols as well.  "Rovin' Eyes....are watching YOU!!!"

(Contrary to what some believe, something approximating de facto "random breath testing" actually IS possible in the USA, they just have to be more creative about it.)

Repeat or high-BAC offenders, and especially those driving recklessly as well, should lose their licenses immediately and permanently, and go directly to jail.  Do NOT pass GO.  Do NOT collect $200.  Do the crime, do the time.  

Even first offenders (who have likely been doing it hundreds of times before getting caught the first time) should still be punished harshly enough to be a very serious deterrent as well.  We also need to expand the use of ignition interlocks for ALL DUI offenders, as well as things like DUI Courts and South Dakota's highly successful 24/7 Program.

Kill or maim someone else as a result of driving under the influence?  Throw away the key!  NO MERCY!

And yes, the "skipper" taxi and rideshare services are an excellent idea that should be implemented everywhere, as well as also extending the hours of public transportation where it currently exists.  There is no reason to make the perfect the enemy of the good, after all.  And that will also help the hospitality industry survive as well.

To Japan's credit, they have proven that it is indeed possible to completely separate drinking from driving.  We certainly have to give them kudos for that, no doubt.

But criminalizing and jailing experienced and responsible adult drivers (let alone those around them too!) for having ONE glass of wine or beer with dinner?  That is simply a bridge too far for any free society that has even the slightest hint of a car culture.  That's not public safety, that's lunacy!

(And as Japan has shown, it's NOT like even that will be enough to appease the ageists into lowering the drinking age, as there is really NO appeasing anyone like that.  Meanwhile, far less strict countries, even with car cultures, still have no qualms about letting 18 year olds drink, as long as the don't drive under the influence of course.)

And of course, we strongly believe that the drinking age should be lowered to 18, period, and yesterday is NOT soon enough.  Let America be America again.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.

After all, at the end of the day, we're NOT Japan.  We never were, and we never will be either.

What Australia Gets Right (Updated)

One thing our movement has a habit of doing is comparing the USA to Europe for the purpose of ascertaining what the effects of a lower drinking age would be like.  While there is some truth to such a comparison, the pro-21 side routinely calls us out on the important differences between here and there.  For example, they have much better public transportation than we do, they are more urbanized, driving licenses are much more difficult to obtain, gas prices are much higher, and thus they are much, much less of a car culture that we are.  All of which would dramatically affect traffic fatalities and skew any comparisons.  As a result, Twenty-One Debunked typically prefers to make comparisons to Canada instead, which is also a car culture that is the most similar to the USA.  And they have seen a similar or faster drop in traffic deaths than the USA despite NOT raising the drinking age to 21, and their traffic death rates have been consistently lower than the USA.  But there is also another major car culture as well with a drinking age of 18--Australia.

In the Land Down Under, they have in fact seen a faster drop in alcohol-related traffic deaths than the USA and even Canada since 1982 despite keeping the drinking age at 18.  For all age groups.  Not only that, a recent study in Australia found essentially no link between being able to drink legally and motor vehicle accidents of any type, at least not in the state that was being studied, New South Wales.  Using a regression discontinuity design similar to the sort that pro-21 researchers have been doing lately, they found NO discontinuous jump in such deaths or injuries in young people upon turning 18.  This stands in stark contrast to the USA, in which various pro-21 researchers have found a significant jump in alcohol-related deaths and injuries among young Americans upon turning 21, an increase that in many cases lingers well beyond one's 21st birthday.

Of course, such a phenomenon is not unique to the USA, as a jump in alcohol-related deaths and injuries has also been observed in Canada at their own respective MLDA (18 or 19, depending on the province), albeit of a shorter duration than in the USA and limited primarily to males who participate in "extreme" binge drinking.  It would seem that a "powder-keg" effect is unfortunately an almost inevitable consequence of the very concept of a drinking age, regardless of what it is.  So what does Australia do right that seems to defuse the powder keg?

Most importantly, Australia has tougher DUI laws, and tougher and more frequent enforcement of such laws.  For example, not only are penalties tougher, but the BAC limit is 0.05 (as opposed to 0.08 in the USA in every state except Utah) and they have random breath testing (RBT), which has been effectively ruled unconstitutional in the USA, and even Canada only began doing it in 2018.  Though one could argue that nowadays the USA effectively practices a form of "de-facto RBT" via a combination of "no-refusal" laws (i.e. the police often have a judge on speed-dial to issue a telewarrant to compel those who refuse to be tested) and often quasi-randomly pull people over for trivial reasons as a pretext and use that as an excuse to test drivers, and the initial effectiveness of RBT in Australia seems to decay over time to converge to the still-significant level of effectiveness demonstrated by American-style sobriety checkpoints (in 38 states) and/or roving/saturation patrols (in all states).   So America can indeed do what Australia does, we just need to be more creative about it.  Additionally, driver's licenses are harder to get and easier to lose over there than in the USA, and the road test there is significantly more difficult as well.  Alcohol excise taxes are also higher in Australia as well.  But truly the biggest and most salient difference is the seriousness with which they take the issue of drunk driving.  You really do NOT want to get busted for DUI in the Land Down Under!

(They also have zero tolerance BAC laws as well, albeit for the first three years of licensed driving regardless of age.)

Of course, the picture down under is not entirely rosy.  Australia's drinking culture is quite extreme even by American, Canadian, and British standards (though tame by New Zealand standards), and binge drinking is quite the art form over there.  Indeed, even the aforementioned study found that while traffic deaths and injuries do not increase discontinuously at 18 when they become legal to drink, there is still a discontinuous increase in hospital visits and admissions for alcohol poisoning and injuries from assault at 18.  But the fact that, even in a country with a more Anglo-Celtic, drink-to-get-drunk culture than the USA, it is nonetheless possible to break the link between drinking and drunk driving casualties, really speaks volumes indeed.

In other words, lowering the drinking age in the USA should really not be something to fear.  But we also need to get tougher on drunk driving if we wish to continue the progress of decades past.

UPDATE:  We should clarify that we do NOT support Australia's zero tolerance per se policy for driving with cannabis.  Since THC is fat-soluble, the pharmacokinetics of cannabis are far too complex, and thus do NOT lend themselves to any sort of per se limits, let alone zero tolerance.  If there must be any official limit, is should be "permissible inference" or "prima facie" instead, and of course significantly greater than zero.  After all, merely testing positive at a too-low cutoff days or longer after last use should NOT be seen as evidence of current impairment.

Why Do Small Alcohol Tax/Price Hikes Have Such Large Effects On Drunk Driving Casualties?

We have noted before how alcohol tax (and thus price) hikes have been proven time and again to save lives, whether from traffic deaths, other accidental deaths, violent deaths, as well as deaths from more direct alcohol-related conditions such as alcoholic liver disease.  The question remains, why such relatively small differences in price have such relatively large effects, that can sometimes even be large enough to strain the reader's credulity?

For things like liver cirrhosis, the answer is pretty straightforward:  cirrhosis is chronic and cumulative, but it is also progressive as well.  At any given time, some unknown number of people (and unknown to the people themselves as well) may be just one binge away from near-certain death.  And for them, even a very modest near-term reduction in drinking due to a price hike (which to a very heavy drinker, is not trivial, since they spend so much on alcohol) can very well save their life.

But what about less direct things like drunk driving casualties?  Well, one needs to think like an economist, that is, on the margin.  It is the last drink of any given drinking session that determines one's final BAC of the session, and it is the final BAC that determines how impaired one is in the event of driving home.  And we know that the fatal or serious crash risk rises exponentially with BAC, thus even a modest reduction (say, one fewer drink per session) would dramatically reduce the risk of such casualties, even though the risk still remains significantly elevated compared to not drinking at all before driving.  At on-premise locations like bars, a tax hike is likely to be passed through at a rate greater than one-to-one due to rounding up, so it is very plausible that at least some people will have one fewer drink per session as a result.  Or alternatively, they may drink before going out to save money, but that would make them more likely to plan ahead and not drive there, so they would be even less likely to drive back home as a result. 

Either way, the fairly recent examples of Illinois and Maryland seeing sizeable reductions in traffic deaths after relatively modest alcohol tax hikes in 2009 and 2011, respectively, definitely supports this hypothesis.  And it shows that this classic "tax-price-consumption-fatalities" relationship is still as relevant as ever now in the 21st century, even if it has been attenuated a bit since the 1980s.  And most of the gazillion studies on the matter have found that the effect is larger than that of the meretricious "crown jewel" of the neo-prohibitionist public health fascists and ageist bigots, namely the 21 drinking age, with the supposed lifesaving effect of the latter being most likely spurious, inconsequential, or even perverse in the long run.

In other words, it's really a no-brainer to raise alcohol taxes, yesterday.  Especially with alcohol being so dangerously cheap right now in America.  So what are we waiting for?

Have A Safe And Happy Holiday Season

(This is a public service announcement)

It is that time of year again when the holidays are upon us, and many of us Americans (and around the world) will be celebrating with alcohol and/or other substances, pretty much back to normal now.  We at Twenty-One Debunked would like to remind everyone to be safe and celebrate responsibly.  There is absolutely no excuse for drunk driving at any age, period.  We cannot stress this enough.  It's very simple--if you plan to drive, don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive.  It's really not rocket science, folks.  And there are numerous ways to avoid mixing the two.  Designate a sober driver, take a cab, use public transportation, crash on the couch, or even walk if you have to.  Or stay home and celebrate there.  Or simply don't drink--nobody's got a gun to your head.  Seriously, don't be stupid about it!  And the same goes for other psychoactive substances as well, and a fortiori when combined with alcohol.

ARRIVE ALIVE, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!   If you plan to drink, don't forget to think!  The life you save may very well be your own.

Is Drunk Walking Really More Dangerous Than Drunk Driving?

Or, "Why People Absolutely Need to Stop Citing Superfreaknomics, Yesterday"

Talk about losing the plot!

Only someone who has repeatedly read Superfreakonomics would really believe that.  (People are apparently still irresponsibly citing it to this day.)  In that rather tepid and disappointing sequel to Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner, the authors claimed that, at least on a per-mile basis, a drunk person is a whopping eight times more likely (!) to be killed while walking than driving the same distance.  However, there are a number of flaws to that claim.  First, they assume that the proportion of total miles traveled while drunk is the same for walking as it is for driving.  This is dubious because drunk driving is far less common nowadays, and many who would have driven drunk a generation ago now choose to walk instead.  Secondly, it is more realistic to compare the risk per hour of traveling time rather than per mile, since far more miles are traveled by car rather than on foot.  Thirdly, the real-world relative risk for an alcohol-related pedestrian fatality does not rise to statistically significant levels until a BAC of about 0.15, while for driving deaths it begins to rise significantly at 0.05 or even lower, which is a very large difference.  To quote NHTSA in their Alcohol and Highway Safety 2001 report:

One interesting finding...was that the relative risk of involvement in a fatal pedestrian crash did not begin to rise until the pedestrians reached a BAC of .15 to .20. This is consistent with the hypothesis that safe walking is generally easier than safe driving, since the relative risk curve for fatal motor vehicle crashes starts to rise at a much lower BAC.

Finally, there is a significant qualitative difference between the two in that while a drunk pedestrian is unlikely to endanger innocent people, a drunk driver is very likely to do so.  That's precisely why the latter is illegal while the former is generally not, though some states do have laws against public drunkenness (which are typically only enforced if the drunk pedestrian is noticeably causing a nuisance or hazard to others).  We may never be able to determine exactly how risky drunk walking is to the drunk individual, and we certainly know that the risk is not zero.  In fact, the NHTSA report suggests that it can be quite significant at very high doses of alcohol.  There is also a risk of falls when one is "falling-down drunk," which can lead to serious or even fatal injuries.  But all things considered, drunk walking is still a better option than drunk driving at any BAC level. (Not that we are encouraging either!)

In other words, if you choose to harm or endanger yourself, that's your own business in a free society.  But the moment you significantly harm or endanger non-consenting others, such as driving under the influence on a public street or highway, it then becomes everyone's business.  Why is that still so hard for so many people to understand?

Never mind, we already know why.  Because too many people are apparently far too left-brain dominant to see the forest for the trees!  And the very same people who, upon reading or hearing about that questionable passage from Superfreakonomics, will inevitably see such specious reasoning as far more of a green light to drive drunk than as a red light to walk drunk.  Now I don't believe in censorship, but come on now:  if I was the editor of Superfreakonomics, I could see myself "accidentally" deleting that particular part of the book before it got published!

And finally, research has found that the best ways to reduce the number of drunk pedestrian casualties at the population level are basically the same strategies that would benefit all pedestrians (and cyclists) drunk or sober, most notably reducing speed limits and vehicle sizes, and otherwise improving infrastructure to be more pedestrian-friendly and bike-friendly in general.  We also need to crack down on and stiffen the penalties for hit-and-run crashes and distracted driving as well.  Anything else, in our view, is an Orwellian slippery slope just waiting to happen.

(Mic drop)

What Should The BAC Limit Be?

It is long past time to revisit the issue of BAC limits for driving once again, specifically for small amounts of alcohol, as it is already obvious for larger amounts.

Twenty-One Debunked believes that, in a perfect world, no one would ever dare to get behind the wheel after having even the slightest amount of alcohol in their system, period.  We would also have safe self-driving cars and state-of-the art public transportation, streets would be designed to maximize safety for all users rather than the convenience of only some users, and so on.  But unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world.  And we never will either.  Think protopian, not utopian.

Thus, we need to be realistic in terms of what sort of BAC limits and penalties we set. Note that the swiftness and certainty of punishment is far more effective than severity.  And we need to prioritize getting actual drunk drivers off the road above all.  Focus on the sharks, not the guppies or dolphins. 

Borrowing from Denmark, one of the heaviest drinking cultures in the world and not even remotely a temperance society, we currently believe that the per se legal limit should be 0.05% in general, and 0.00% if observed to be driving recklessly.

Borrowing from most of Canada, we believe that only a BAC above 0.08% should carry  criminal charges, and 0.05% to 0.08% should be only a traffic violation with a brief administrative license suspension and brief vehicle impoundment and a modest fine.  For novice drivers of any age with less than two consecutive, accident and violation-free years of licensed driving, or under 21, whichever is longer, the BAC limit should be either 0.00% or 0.02%, also a traffic violation less than or equal to that above 0.05%.

If the limit is officially set to 0.00% for effect, any test result below the limit of quantitative (LOQ) must be treated as a presumptive zero (by that, I mean a conclusive presumption).  If it is a handheld breathalyzer device, or if the LOQ is unknown for the instrument, any result below 0.02% shall be a presumptive zero.  And all failing breathalyzer results should be confirmed on a second device.

Penalties should be graduated.  For those with above 0.08% but below 0.15%, a first offense should be a misdemeanor, in addition to any administrative license revocation.  There can also be an option to proceed only administratively and thus summarily.  Repeat offenses above 0.08%, or any offenses above 0.15% (or "aggravated DUI"), and/or with any kids under 16 in the car and/or when a serious accident occurs, should be automatic felonies with stiff sentences and heavy fines that can only be downgraded upon successful completion of an alcohol treatment program, that is, the classic "felony hammer".  And license revocations after the second offense above 0.08% need to be (more or less) permanent.  No more people still driving after their second, third, fourth, or fifth (!) DUI, ever again.

And those who drunkenly kill or maim innocent people, well, they need to go away for a very, very long time.  No excuses.  Do the crime, do the time.

And enforcement of these BAC limits should be done not only with checkpoints, but also with roving patrols as well, including the back roads especially.  And also use the "fish in a barrel method" in the parking lots of bars and clubs too.  We need to get these ticking time bombs off the road, yesterday.

So what are we waiting for?

UPDATE:  While the evidence on zero tolerance laws is mixed at best, we will concede there may also be some side benefits to these laws as well.  Whether those alleged benefits are actually worth it remains an open question.

Have A Safe And Happy Holiday Season

(This is a public service announcement)

It is that time of year again when the holidays are upon us, and many of us Americans (and around the world) will be celebrating with alcohol and/or other substances, even if they are doing it rather differently this year for obvious reasons.  We at Twenty-One Debunked would like to remind everyone to be safe and celebrate responsibly.  There is absolutely no excuse for drunk driving at any age, period.  We cannot stress this enough.  It's very simple--if you plan to drive, don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive.  It's really not rocket science, folks.  And there are numerous ways to avoid mixing the two.  Designate a sober driver, take a cab, use public transportation, crash on the couch, or even walk if you have to.  Or stay home and celebrate there.  Or simply don't drink--nobody's got a gun to your head.  Seriously, don't be stupid about it!  And the same goes for other psychoactive substances as well, and a fortiori when combined with alcohol.

ARRIVE ALIVE, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!   If you plan to drink, don't forget to think!  The life you save may very well be your own.

Fewer Young People In A Hurry To Drive

In the USA today, people still seem to get their driver's licenses earlier than Europeans, as we have more of a car culture over here.  But that gap is closing, since apparently fewer and fewer young Americans are gung-ho about driving or learning to drive these days, our rather persistent car culture and very limited public transportation notwithstanding.

Canada is probably the same way, despite also being a car culture with limited public transportation as well.  And their drinking ages are 18 or 19 depending on the province.  Meanwhile, their traffic fatality rates, both alcohol-related and otherwise, are in fact lower than those in the USA, in every age group in fact.

One can also say the same about Australia as well, whose drinking age is 18, is a car culture, and has even lower traffic fatality rates as well for all ages, both alcohol-related and otherwise.

And so while not completely irrelevant yet in that sense, the tired old drunk driving argument against lowering the drinking age to 18 is indeed far less relevant compared with the way it was one 1980s and 1990s.  But honestly, the drunk driving argument never made sense to us.  DUI is already illegal, and even more illegal now than it was in the 1980s. And doing so is dangerous at any age, not just under 21. And of course, it is perfectly possible to not mix alcohol and driving.  Punishing all drinkers under some arbitrary age limit by depriving them of liberty on the mere supposition that they *might* get behind the wheel after driving (and thus in turn *might* harm innocent people) goes against everything a free society stands for, and is 100% un-American.  And just like "flattening the curve", the best it does is kick the can down the road without actually solving anything.  Studies by Dirscherl (2011), Miron and Tetelbaum (2009), Dee (2001), as well as Asch and Levy (1987 and 1990), et al., bear this fact out quite nicely.

Let America be America Again, and lower the drinking age to 18.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.

QED

Operation Rovin' Eyes

It has been a while since Twenty-One Debunked has explored in-depth solutions to the perennial and persistent scourge of drunk driving.  Today we build on what we have learned and what we have advocated since our founding in 2009.

Enter "Operation Rovin' Eyes", an idea that combines roving patrols (saturation police patrols against DUI), citizen ride-alongs, and reality TV.  Decades of research shows that roving patrols work very well at both deterring and catching impaired drivers, with or without sobriety checkpoints.  We believe that combining them with ride-alongs will further enhance the effectiveness.  Be sure to check the back roads too, and areas that are known for lots of parties and such.  And if televised, it would also make a great reality TV show as well, even better than COPS.

(The song "Roving Gangster" by Kid Rock would be a good theme song for such a show.)

Another thing that can be added to this is "Operation Fish in a Barrel", in which a police car is parked outside a bar or club, and the officer(s) watch for signs of intoxication, and waits for the drunk patrons to get to their cars.  Then there are two possible tactics.  One is to intercept the would-be drunk driver before they put the keys in the ignition, and give them a verbal warning and a free ride home.  The other is to wait until after they put the keys in the ignition, and then proceed to bust them for DUI.  Either way, they are getting these ticking time bombs off the road for the time being, before they get on the road.  And that would of course save countless lives.

(NOTE to non-American readers:  in some countries outside the USA, such as Canada and the UK, you can still get a DUI even if you have the keys in your pocket and you are within a certain distance from the vehicle.)

And of course, this would be an excellent complement to lowering the drinking age to 18.

So what are we waiting for?

Why Are Traffic Deaths on the Rise? (Part Deux)

After decades of a massive secular decline in traffic deaths, reaching an all-time record low in 2014 per VMT as well as per capita, such deaths have been creeping up again since then.  2015 and 2016 both saw national increases in fatalities, and while 2017 saw a slight decrease from 2016, the number of deaths still remains stubbornly higher than it was before the increase.  In fact, 2015-2016 is the largest two-year jump in deaths in half a century.  So why has progress stalled and begun to reverse in recent years?

The list of most likely factors includes the following:

• Lower gas prices
• An improving economy since the Great Recession
• An increase in distracted driving (and walking), primarly from smartphones
• Higher speed limits than in the past 
• Infrastructure in disrepair from decades of gross neglect
• Slacking on traffic safety improvements in general since the early 1990s

All of these things are true, and all of them are known to be correlated with traffic casualties.  Other factors are involved as well, to be sure, but these are the big ones.  The first three are the proximal causes, while the last three are the more distal ones.

Of course, drunk driving and not wearing seatbelts remain rather persistent contributors to the number of these deaths, but such behaviors remain far lower than they were decades ago.  Nevertheless, they remain at dangerous levels, and it is apparently a bit too early to feel safe in that regard.  And with real alcohol prices at record lows today and alcohol consumption on the rise for the past two decades, there is definitely a cause for concern in that regard.

What about drugged driving, then?  Is it really on the rise, like some have claimed?  Perhaps, but it may simply be that we are getting better at detecting it rather than an actual increase.  Or perhaps it is a bit of both.  The opioid epidemic certainly doesn't make the roads any safer, with such doped-up drivers nodding off behind the wheel.  And contrary to the anti-legalization folks, there does not seem to be any firm link between cannabis legalization and traffic fatalities.  In fact, some studies have found decreases in highway deaths following cannabis liberalization, due to an apparent substitution with alcohol (and perhaps opioids as well).  As for the specious claim of preliminary evidence linking the increase in pedestrian deaths in some legalization states in the first half of 2017 with legalization, that does not really pass the smell test because 1) not all legalization states even saw any increase during that time, 2) small numbers tend to fluctuate wildly, and 3) why would cannabis legalization only affect pedestrian deaths and not other traffic deaths during that time as well?

One thing is for sure.  Whether this spike in traffic casualties is a short-term blip or the start of a longer-term trend (which will only be known in hindsight), it should be a major wake-up call that we clearly cannot afford to be complacent about it any longer.  The USA has seriously lagged behind other industrialized countries for decades in terms of progress on traffic safety (all of which have lower drinking ages than we do, interestingly enough), and we need to catch up, yesterday.  That includes the safety of pedestrians and cyclists as well, who have borne the brunt of the recent increase in traffic deaths.  And even when vehicle miles (or kilometers) traveled are taken into account, the USA still has either higher fatality rates and/or has seen less progress since the 1980s compared with nearly all other industrialized (and even semi-industrialized) nations.

A short list of things we can do include:

• Crack down on drunk driving, drug-impaired driving, reckless driving, and distracted driving--yesterday.
• Stiffen the penalties for hit-and-run crashes--yesterday.
• Reduce speed limits, especially on side streets, arterials, and smaller highways--yesterday.
• Install speed cameras and red-light cameras in more places (but be sure to also lengthen the yellow lights and double-reds to prevent it from backfiring with more rear-enders).
• Raise the gas tax by a penny per week until it is at least 50 cents/gal higher than now ("A Penny for Progress") and/or implement a carbon tax-and-dividend scheme.
• Raise the alcohol taxes significantly as well (note how those taxes have been lagging behind inflation for decades in most states).
• Design roads/streets to be more pedestrian-friendly and bike-friendly as well.
• Invest more in public transportation, as well as "safe-rider" programs as well. 
• Rebuild America's neglected and crumbling infrastructure, generating millions of new jobs in the process.
• And last but not least, make the road test harder like it is in many other countries, and make driver's licenses easier to lose for serious and/or repeated traffic violations.

After all, if it saves even ONE life, it's worth it, right?  Thought so.  So what are we waiting for?

Do Alcohol Taxes Still Work to Save Lives?

Avid readers of our blog would note that Twenty-One Debunked supports raising the tax on alcoholic beverages almost as wholeheartedly as we support lowering the drinking age to 18.  And there are reams and reams of research evidence over many decades--locally, nationally, and internationally--that find that higher alcohol prices (and thus taxes) save lives both on and off the highways as well as reduce crime, violence, and other alcohol-related problems.   In contrast, the ageist abomination that is the 21 drinking age has not consistently demonstrated similar effectiveness in that regard, no matter what sort of pseudo-consensus exists in the minds of its most ardent supporters, and the best evidence thus far has exposed the specious claim of saving lives as little more than a mere statistical mirage all along.

That said, for the specific endpoint of alcohol-related traffic fatalities, among the reams of evidence there have been a few outlier studies that seem to cast doubt on the lifesaving effect of alcohol prices/taxes as well.  The most recent one in 2017 by McClelland and Iselin of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center studied the effects of the Illinois alcohol tax hikes in both 1999 and 2009, and found no long-term lifesaving effect from either one in terms of drunk driving deaths.  In contrast, a previous 2015 study by Wagenaar et al. had found a fairly large drop in alcohol-related traffic deaths following the 2009 Illinois tax hike, even after controlling for the effects of the Great Recession.  The biggest difference between the two studies was that McClelland and Iselin used the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) while Wagenaar et al. did not, and while a good method, like all methods it too can have its own share of pitfalls.

As for the other outlier studies, most of those are dissected and discussed in a 2015 replication review by David Roodman, which still concludes that a true lifesaving effect is likely.  One such outlier study is by Dee (1999), whose control for state-specific time trends apparently removed too much useful variation in state-level beer taxes.  And while Roodman did not discuss our all-time favorite study by Miron and Tetelbaum (2009), we should note that this study in fact began by replicating Dee (1999) using more years of data and including Alaska, Hawaii, and DC, and in contrast to Dee they did apparently find a fairly strong inverse correlation between beer taxes and 18-20 year old traffic deaths even after adjusting for state-specific time trends.

Granted, it is true that for the specific endpoint of DUI deaths, the price of alcohol may not be quite as important as it once was.  Drunk driving is far less common and far less socially acceptable than it was a generation ago, and legal sanctions against it are much stiffer now as well.  And with alcohol prices currently at a record low in relative terms, and alcohol taxes generally being a small portion of the overall price, the link between the two may not be as salient or noticeable as it once was due to being swamped or masked by other factors.  But that does not mean that it is ineffective, given the fact that several more recent studies continue to find such effects, and the numerous studies that continue find fairly large benefits in terms of reducing non-traffic deaths and harms as well (cirrhosis, unintentional injuries, cancer, crime, violence, STDs, etc.).

Thus, the overwhelming weight of the evidence still continues to support the idea that raising alcohol taxes/prices is an effective (and especially cost-effective) public health policy in terms of saving lives both on and off the highways as well as reducing alcohol-related problems in general.  And if it is high enough, it is also justified on Pigouvian grounds as well.  So what are we waiting for?

National Academies' Drunk Driving Study Is A Mixed Bag

The latest NHTSA-commissioned study done by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has just been released.  The 489-page report came up with the following recommendations based on a review of the literature:

• Lower the BAC limit for DUI to 0.05 (currently 0.08 in all 50 states* and DC)
• Increase alcohol taxes
• Reduce the hours and days during which alcohol can be sold
• Crack down on sales of alcohol to people under 21 and people who are already intoxicated
• Put limits on alcohol marketing and fund anti-alcohol campaigns similar to what is currently done with smoking.

As we can see, this list of recommendations is a mixed bag overall.  Let's go through each of these ideas, one by one:

Lower the BAC limit to 0.05.  Twenty-One debunked supports this one, albeit with the reservation that driving with a BAC of 0.050-0.079 ought to be a traffic violation rather than a criminal offense, with criminal penalties reserved for those above 0.08.  The models used in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, or even the one currently used in New York, should be used in all states and territories.  And all penalties for DUI should be steeply graduated based on BAC in general.

Increase alcohol taxes.  Twenty-One Debunked fully supports this one, and it is in fact a key component of our proposal.  And it is probably the single best way to reduce alcohol-related harms, including drunk driving casualties.  We recommend raising and equalizing the federal tax on all alcoholic beverages to the 1991 inflation-adjusted level for distilled spirits, namely $24 per proof-gallon.

Reduce the hours and days during which alcohol can be sold.  Twenty-One Debunked does not take an official position on this one, but would be fine with a modest reduction depending on the details (days?).  It would seem that there is an optimum time for "last call" which is overall better than anything much earlier or later.   We need more information to make a sound judgment about this recommendation.

Crack down on alcohol sales to people under 21.   Well, you should know by now how we stand on that one.  In a word, NO.  Twenty-One Debunked believes in lowering the drinking age to 18, full stop.  That said, we would be fine with cracking down on vendors who sell to people under 18 all the same.

Crack down on sales to people who are already (noticeably) intoxicated.  Twenty-One Debunked would be okay with that, as long it is not done in an ageist or overly heavy-handed fashion.

Put limits on alcohol marketing and fund anti-alcohol campaigns similar to smoking.  Twenty-One Debunked supports this one, albeit with some reservations.  Clearly, alcohol and tobacco are quite different from one another in terms of both harm and addictiveness, and that undeniable fact should figure into any such campaigns.  Alcohol is not all bad per se, unlike tobacco.  As a wise man once said, smoking is not like drinking, it is more like being an alcoholic.

Also, some ideas were noticeably absent or at best downplayed from the list of recommendations.  These include:

• Tougher enforcement against DUI
• Tougher (and graduated) penalties for DUI
• Ignition interlock devices
• South Dakota's 24/7 Sobriety Program 
• Safe rider programs
• Alcohol server training
• Reducing outlet density
• Social norms marketing
• Innovative alcohol education methods
• Improved treatment for alcohol use disorders
• Better public transportation 
• Better traffic safety measures in general
• Increasing the gas tax

All of which we support, and are either proven or at least promising.  And of course we support lowering the drinking age to 18.  Yet they supported tougher enforcement of the 21 drinking age.  Why, given how it has been so thoroughly debunked by Miron and Tetelbaum (2009) and several other studies?  Well, no one wants to admit that their crown jewel is somehow tainted--and NHTSA et al. clearly considers the 21 drinking age to be their crown jewel of sorts.

But back to the controversial 0.05 limit proposal, as we have noted above, it should be administrative rather than criminal.  Even for BACs above 0.08 it should also carry such administrative sanctions in addition to (and separate from) any criminal penalies.  And the Canadian experience with such has shown that swift and certain (but modest) punishment works wonders, much more so than lowering the boom rarely and haphazardly.  As for the fear that bars and restaurants will lose business as a result?  Well, let us play the world's smallest violin for them.  They may want to think ahead and invest in "safe rider" programs then.  Problem solved.

So what are we waiting for?

* The criminal BAC limit is 0.08 in all states except Utah, whose new 0.05 law goes into effect on December 30, 2018.  Some states, such as New York, actually already set the limit at 0.05 for a lesser offense that is just a traffic violation and not a criminal offense, albeit with license suspension.

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?

Let's Finish The Job Already

In a previous post, we at Twenty-One Debunked noted how successful Australia has been at reducing the perennial scourge of drunk driving casualties since the early 1980s.  In fact, they have been much more successful than the USA has been despite (or more likely, because of) Australia keeping the drinking age at 18 combined with tougher DUI laws and enforcement.  This is true even though the Land Down Under is an avid car culture where binge drinking is known to be quite the art form (and more so than the USA), so that really says something!

Canada, with a drinking age of 18 or 19 depending on the province, has also seen more success overall than the USA, though not quite as much as Australia has.  Like the USA, they had been slacking a bit from the mid-1990s through the 2000s, though recently some provinces like Alberta and British Columbia have toughened up and resumed their previous decades of progress.  And in the past decade the USA has stepped up enforcement a bit as well.  But truly there is much more room for improvement in the USA, which out of all "developed" nations has generally seen the least amount of overall progress in reducing traffic deaths despite (or perhaps because of) raising the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s.

So what does Twenty-One Debunked recommend that we do to "finish the job", aside from lowering the drinking age to 18 and raising the alcohol excise taxes?  Well, for starters, we could:

• Lower the BAC limit to 0.05, with graduated penalties that rise dramatically with BAC.
• Increase the use and frequency of sobriety checkpoints and/or roving patrols to catch drunk drivers.
• Impose administrative sanctions, such as license suspensions and vehicle impoundment, including for drivers of with BAC of 0.05-0.08.  (British Columbia and Alberta are good models to follow in that regard)
• Require alcohol ignition interlocks for all impaired driving offenders (and make it a standard feature on all new vehicles as well).

Additionally, we could also adopt what I like to call the "fish in a barrel" method of catching drunk drivers before they get on the road.  Park a police car outside each bar, observe who is about to drive under the influence, and catch them as soon as they put the key in the ignition.  Gotcha!  Alternatively, one can intercept them before they even enter their vehicles, and offer them a ride home instead.  Either way, that will scare many potential drunk drivers straight, and bars would thus be under economic pressure to offer free "safe rider" programs in order to maintain the same volume of customers patronizing them without fear of getting a DUI.

Another idea, loosely borrowed from UCLA researcher Mark Kleiman, would be the "blacklist".  To wit, if someone is convicted of drunk driving, drunk violence, drunk vandalism, or repeated drunk and disorderly conduct, they would be banned from purchasing alcohol or entering a bar for at least a year or until 21, whichever is longer.  Subsequent offenses would be two or more years.  Ditto for anyone who buys or furnishes alcohol to anyone under 18 (other than one's own child) or any adult who has been blacklisted thusly.  Driver licenses or ID cards to blacklisted individuals would read "do not serve alcohol under penalty of law".  Additionally, we can allow problem drinkers without convictions to opt-in voluntarily to be blacklisted as well for up to five years, much like they have for casino gambling in some states.  We could call such a program "86 Me" or something along those lines, and that looks very promising indeed.

It's 2016, and time to finish the job already.  The question is, do our leaders have the intestinal fortitude to do so?

Have a Safe And Happy Holiday Season

It is that time of year again when the holidays are upon us, and many of us Americans (and around the world) will be celebrating with alcohol and/or other substances.  We at Twenty-One Debunked would like to remind everyone to be safe and celebrate responsibly.  There is absolutely no excuse for drunk driving at any age, period.  We cannot stress this enough.  It's very simple--if you plan to drive, don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive.  It's really not rocket science, folks.  And there are numerous ways to avoid mixing the two.  Designate a sober driver, take a cab, use public transportation, crash on the couch, or even walk if you have to.  Or stay home and celebrate there.  Or don't drink--nobody's got a gun to your head.  And the same goes for other psychoactive substances as well.

What Should the BAC Limit Be?

Recently there has been a push to lower the BAC limit for DUI to 0.05 from its current 0.08.  The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) estimates that it would save 1000 lives per year.  This idea is not without controversy, and Twenty-One Debunked is clearly no stranger to controversy.  So is it a wise idea?

First, let's examine the evidence.  It is clear that most drivers are significantly impaired at a BAC of 0.05-0.08, with at least a fourfold increase in fatal crash risk compared to zero BAC, even though this impairment can be rather subtle.  For young male drivers, this relative risk increases to tenfold.  Most civilized countries (and the state of New York) recognize this fact and have thus set their BAC limits at 0.05, and some have set it even lower still.  And doing so has been shown to save lives, even in car-cultures like Australia who saw more progress in reducing alcohol-related traffic deaths than the USA or Canada.  To reach a BAC of 0.05, it would take about three drinks for a 180-pound man or about two drinks for a 120-pound woman within an hour or two.  So contrary to popular opinion, a 0.05 limit would NOT criminalize having a drink with dinner at a restaurant and subsequently driving home.  Thus, on balance, the benefits of lowering the limit outweigh the costs, and it is most likely a good idea overall.

That being said, Twenty-One Debunked does NOT support making it a criminal offense to drive with a BAC of 0.05-0.08.  Rather, we favor the approach taken by the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, as well as some Australian states.  In these jurisdictions, driving with a BAC of 0.05-0.08 is illegal but is only a traffic infraction, with administrative rather than criminal penalties.  Only above 0.08 would a driver face criminal penalties.  Administrative penalties include immediate short-term license suspension, short-term vehicle impoundment, and fairly modest fines for those who fail or refuse a breathalyzer.  Our proposal already includes these ideas, along with tougher enforcement and graduated penalties based on BAC and number of offenses.  We believe that if all or even some of the ideas in our proposal were implemented, alcohol-related traffic deaths and other problems would decrease dramatically in a fairly short time.

Finally, we should note that MADD founder (and later turncoat) Candy Lightner is against lowering the BAC limit to 0.05, about as strongly as she supports keeping the drinking age 21.  Remember that in 2008 she even insulted our men and women in uniform on national TV just to make a point about why the drinking age should be 21 in her view.  That is truly the height of hubris and hypocrisy, and you don't get much more pharisaical than that.   And ironically even MADD itself, who Lightner has apparently made peace with, isn't too keen on the 0.05 limit either. 

MADD and their ilk have historically claimed that if a particular policy saves even one life, it's worth it.  Funny how they would oppose (or at least not push for) a policy that would likely save at least as many lives as their own (bogus) estimate of lives saved by the 21 drinking age.  That really speaks volumes about what they really are--an anti-youth hate group that really has no place in a civilized society but on the trash heap of history.

Have a Safe and Happy New Year

With the New Year's Eve festivities approaching, we at Twenty-One Debunked want to remind everyone to celebrate responsibly.  There is absolutely no excuse for drunk driving at any age, period.  We cannot stress this enough.  It's very simple--if you plan to drive, don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive.  And there are numerous ways to avoid mixing the two.  Designate a sober driver, take a cab, use public transportation, crash on the couch, or even walk if you have to.  Or stay home and celebrate there.  Or don't drink--nobody's got a gun to your head.

Before You Go Out Drinking--Watch This:

Here is a great Australian video everyone should watch about the dangers of driving under the influence, regardless of age.  It just might make you think twice before taking such a risk.  (Warning--contains some graphic images)



Moral of the story:  Drunk driving is like Russian roulette, and you never know who will be hit with the proverbial bullet when you play.  In fact it's worse because it all too often kills innocent people who aren't playing that stupid game.  It's actually very simple to avoid:  if you plan to drive, don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive.  Thus, there is no excuse.

ARRIVE ALIVE, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!