FOX: Does New Government Drunk Driving Campaign Unfairly Target Men?

Mr. R dropped the ball on this one. He was under-prepared to debate the lawyer. He had no statistics or cites himself to introduce, he was merely refuting/denying. That's not enough to make a point. If he had just Googled "drunk driving statistics by gender" he'd've gotten to this page:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drving.htm

It says males are twice as likely as females to be DUI. Given that, of 4 people shown in the gov't ad, at least one of them should have been a woman. Also, note there was no ethnic diversity in this ad, either.

He also didn't hammer away at the point that often women expect or insist that men do the driving after the party. Hence the risk of getting caught is effectively shifted to the man even though both people got drunk. Some states cover this by charging the passenger with public drunkenness, but based on anecdotal evidence, I get the impression that they will usually do this only if the passenger is male.

regarding this statement "It says males are twice as likely as females to be DUI." what it probably means is that males are twice as likely to be charged...or tested...or pulled over...or whatever. Maybe they mean DUI as a legal term rather than a literal one. This is, someone is DUI when they are charged as such.

Actually, looking at the statement again, what it says is that "Male drivers involved in fatal motor vehicle crashes are almost twice as likely as female drivers to be intoxicated".

That's not really exactly the same thing. Is that the statement you were referring to?

Yes, crashes don't equate with DUI instances, though crashes are the reason why DUI is considered so bad-- the more you drink, more likely you are to run that thing up a lamppost. But I see your point. If DUI is "mallum in se" then it really would be hard, aside from mere arrest stats, to determine how much DUI as a percentage of drivers is done by women v. men. And I have a feeling "tipsy ladies" are more likely to be let off with a warning than "drunk men".

When one day, maybe soon, just to start a car you'll need to breathalyze, then certainly the incidence of DUI will fall. Of course then, people looking "to party" and then drive home will simply move onto something that isn't detectable via breathalyzer. The bounds of human adaptation are limitless indeed-- one just needs time and opportunity.

But whenever I see a restricted data set, its like a red flag. So DUIs are being estimated by FATAL car crashes? Not total number of car crashes? Not by citations? Why not by some kind of survey? They must exist...they even cited one: "Young men ages 18 to 20 (under the legal drinking age) reported driving while alcohol-impaired more than any other age group."

Now going by who self-reports? Why not tell the whole story?

Very selective about what data get put 'out there'. One would almost come to believe that someone is trying to control what we think.