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How come nobody complains about car violence?
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In recent years, Texas courts have begun treating repeat, dangerous drunk drivers like murderers. One man got 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to his tenth driving while intoxicated (DWI) conviction. After making bond, he skipped town and was extradited from Illinois. Another received 35 years after conviction on his seventh DWI, while another received 40 years after his eighth DWI conviction.
“Enough is enough,” said [Williamson County] District Attorney John Bradley. “The public deserves to be protected from drunks who continue to get into cars and endanger innocent lives…”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines Criminal Homicide as: “The willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another.” The FBI notes that traffic fatalities are excluded from their annual tabulation of criminal homicides. However, as explained below, the U.S. Department of Justice does equate DWI fatality with homicide, in a manner much more suited to the purpose of this article, which will examine the validity of equating a drunk driving fatality with a “willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another.”
DWI and Homicide Trends
Table 1 shows that there was a general decrease in the DWI fatalities during the period of 2000-2006, which is a continuation of the general 20-year decline begun in 1982, when the Department of Transportation began tabulating this data.
DWI fatality rates fell from 6.18 (per 100,000 population) in 2000 to 5.88 by 2006, nearly matching the homicide rate of 5.69. Murder rates rose slightly after 2000, then decreased in 2004, and then rose again slightly. (Curiously, 2004 saw the lowest rates of both DWI fatalities and criminal homicides, with slight increases in the last two years.) Nevertheless, DWI fatality rates consistently led the overall murder rate.
Table 1: Murders Versus Alcohol-Related Fatalities | ||||
Year | Murders | Rate | DWI Fatalities | Rate |
2000 | 15,586 | 5.54 | 17,380 | 6.18 |
2001 | 16,037 | 5.62 | 17,400 | 6.10 |
2002 | 16,229 | 5.64 | 17,524 | 6.09 |
2003 | 16,528 | 5.68 | 17,105 | 5.88 |
2004 | 16,148 | 5.50 | 16,919 | 5.76 |
2005 | 16,740 | 5.65 | 17,590 | 5.93 |
2006 | 17,034 | 5.69 | 17,602 | 5.88 |
Total/Ave. | 114,302 | 5.62 | 121,520 | 5.97 |
The Cost of Drunk Driving
In 1996, the DOJ’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) published a report entitled Victim Costs and Consequences, where they calculated how much each type of crime victimization cost society in terms of medical, emotional, social, and work-related costs. Their cost estimates were based upon 1993 dollars, so Table 2 recalculates the two FBI crime categories and the two DWI categories to reflect 2000-2006 dollar values.
What is most interesting is that this study assigned greater cost to a DWI fatality than to a murder. Thus, the DOJ considers DWI fatalities a greater cost to society than murder. Therein lies justification for performing a cost comparison of DWIs to homicide, and perhaps explains why some prosecuting attorneys use similar sentencing guidelines for both crimes. This seems reasonable, as both murder and drunk driving involve premeditated actions which harm others.
For example, one murder cost society $4,101,758 in 2006, including law enforcement, medical, insurance, lost productivity, and less easily quantified costs such as quality of life. But each DWI fatality in 2006 cost $4,436,595, 8.2% more than each murder.
Table 2: Cost Per Incident | ||
Year | Murder | DWI Fatality |
1993 | $2,940,000 | $3,180,000 |
2000 | 3,503,585 | 3,789,592 |
2001 | 3,603,280 | 3,897,426 |
2002 | 3,660,249 | 3,959,045 |
2003 | 3,743,668 | 4,049,273 |
2004 | 3,843,363 | 4,157,107 |
2005 | 3,973,578 | 4,297,952 |
2006 | 4,101,758 | 4,436,595 |
Next, the annual cost of each of each crime category can be calculated, as shown in Table 3. The total cost of DWI fatalities consistently outstripped that of murders, costing nearly $9.4 billion more in 2006 and a total of over $65 billion more between 2000 and 2006.
If this cost is a valid criteria for determining the level of severity of a crime––and its corresponding level of punishment––then here is a point in favor of changing sentencing guidelines for DWI fatalities to equal those for murder.
Table 3: Cost By Category, 1997-2005 | ||
Year | Murder | DWI Fatality |
2000 | 54,606,875,810 | 65,863,108,960 |
2001 | 57,785,801,360 | 67,815,212,400 |
2002 | 59,402,181,021 | 69,378,304,580 |
2003 | 61,875,344,704 | 69,262,814,665 |
2004 | 62,062,625,724 | 70,334,093,333 |
2005 | 66,517,695,720 | 72,570,919,520 |
2006 | 68,663,428,920 | 78,039,706,050 |
Totals | $430,913,953,259 | $496,294,215,668 |
Considering these facts, why isn’t Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign making bold statements about sensible car laws?
References
Fatality numbers compiled from FBI and DOT data. Email request for spreadsheet.
Dollar amounts using the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator.
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