Archive for the ‘drunk driving’ Category

How's this for a bad dream: you're lying in bed at 4am, fast asleep next to someone you love, when a Chevy Aveo comes crashing through the wall and pins you to the mattress, coating your PJs in engine fluid and cutting off circulation to your extremities. For two Nevada college students, the nightmare was real. Thankfully, they've lived to tell about it.

But despite the mostly happy ending (well, except for the car and presumably incarcerated driver), the incident does leave a couple of unanswered questions: did the kids' parents know that the two were shacking up? And which is worse: the fact that the driver intentionally rammed the house...

Bad news: women account for an increasingly large number of DUI arrests, while the number of men hauled in for drinking and driving appears to be -- get this -- falling. Says one rep from the California Office of Traffic Safety, "younger women feel more empowered, more equal to men, and have been beginning to exhibit the same uninhibited behaviors as men." Ordinarily, we like uninhibited people, but this clearly crosses the (center) line. Fortunately, we think we know who's to blame for the trend. (Hint: look to the left.) [AP]

Drinking and driving don't mix, and by now, pretty much every driver knows that--though not everyone practices what they preach. The good news: Drunk driving levels have reached a new low, according to a recent roadside survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The bad news: While fewer people are driving under the influence of alcohol, a sustantial number are driving under the influence of other substances. First among them? Marijuana.

Back in the bad old days (1973), fully 7.5 percent of drivers had blood alcohol concentrations of 0.08 percent or higher. That level, very roughly equivalent to four drinks, is now the...