OT OT Diana,
Nice to hear from you. Actually, most enforcement people know that the vast majority of accidents are not caused by drinking and driving, nor by kids speeding or old folks with age impairment. The vast majority of accidents are caused by
(drum roll, please)
(are the self-righteous among you ready?)
Sleep Deprivation. Yes, that's right, the electric light bulb, television, computers, caffeinated drinks, a go-go, never say stop world which keeps us over stimulated and under rested has almost everyone functioning with a sleep debt, all the time. When you read about an accident on I-5 or I-95 and the police report says so-and-so "lost control" or "inexplicably crossed the median" or "somehow crossed onto the shoulder of the road," if there's no mention of alcohol, drugs or velocity (which there isn't, 99 percent of the time) then, voila, you've got sleepy head accidents.
If we really want to control some of the 50 or 60 thousand traffic fatalities a year in this country, we might start by turning off the electricity from 11 pm to 6 am and forcing people to get more than 4-5 hours of sleep. Of course then, a la the New York blackout in 1968 (?), we'd probably have a population boom. |
