Aside from the frequency that one, and not the other, is used in commercials and public awareness campaigns, what is the difference?

If I'm looking at the radio in my car for 10 seconds and not at the road while tooling along at 70 miles an hour, would you seriously contend that I'm less of a threat than a guy with hands at 10 and 2 who has had four or five beers? What about when I'm 80 years old and my reflexes and vision are literally worse than the 25 year old version of me after 4 or 5 beers?

Generally speaking, I think there's some interesting discussion fodder for DUI policy and societal reaction. Not so much the laws - driving while intoxicated is certainly unnecessary and dangerous when compared with not driving intoxicated (all other things being equal). But I always wonder at the villainization of drunk drivers compared to, say, other people driving with distractions (screaming kids, food that they're eating, newspapers that they're reading, etc). All of those things significantly impair someone's ability to drive and make people significantly more dangerous - arguably easily as much as driving while moderately intoxicated. I think that eating McDonald's with the family on a car trip (kids throwing french fries, burger and drink in your hands, etc) is probably not a lot different than throwing back seven or eight beers and driving home, when it comes to "impairment".

I read an interesting article today ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/ma...ei=5087%0A ) that talked about a variety of topics relating to society and morality, and how things come to be "taboo" simply by convention, and for no particularly logical, or even explainable reason. I think the demonization of DUI is a good example. It can easily be demonstrated that other driving distractions are just as detrimental as DUI, and yet society clamors for people to be incarcerated for lengthy periods of time for DUI and not for the rest of these things. I see this as the product of two factors: (1) The aggressive campaign of appeal to emotion and vividness over the years (throughout our lives, we're constantly shown gruesome pictures of DUI victims and not victims of some guy eating McDonald's and turning around to yell at his kids) and (2) the general moralizing that goes on against vice behaviors. Even though alcohol is woven into the fabric of our society, it still makes a great scapegoat - "sure, I drink myself stupid, but I'd never do that".

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson