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1. While I agree that safety should be a concern you have fallen for the fallacy of treating the symptom, instead of treating the cause. We all knowing making it illegal to drive while using a phone, drunk driving or without a license stops crashes. OH WAIT.

2. Why are you ignoring the greater problem of Alcohol?
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811379.pdf&pli=1
and
http://www.edgarsnyder.com/drunk-driving/statistics.html
http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/12/04/2600_us_annual_death_toll/
"Mobile phone-related car crashes are responsible for 1 in 20 highway deaths in the US,"

2000: Total fatalities: 41,945 Alcohol Deaths: 17,380 (41%), Cell Deaths: 2600 (6%)
2009: Total fatalities: 33,808, Alcohol Deaths: 12,744 (38%), Cell Deaths: 5474 (16%)

OMG, you're right. Only about 10k people a year are killed by drunks, and the murder rate is real low per 100k. Which is apples and oranges of course, you gotta keep the units straight. It's a lotta people no matter what. I'd bet the "death by McDonalds cholesterol" swamps them all. http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html Meth is more insidious. As an old hippie myself, I learned back in the '60s - Speed Kills. And in this case it really does. A couple of life long friends are dead of it - well, their husks still walk around, so they aren't counted as drug deaths, but my friends are dead. It's really a shame something like it had to come along and remove the simplicity of the "just make drugs legal" slogan. Though I suppose it would improve the breed if we just let the stupids have meth and die...Darwin and all that.

We don't do anything about it? They've been going down (with minor statistical setbacks) for nearly 30 years, so either they're going down on their own, or we've been doing something. Frankly, if we "haven't been doing anything" and they've been going down on their own, we shouldn't suddenly start doing something, or we're likely to mess up a good trend!

There were a million better examples out there, how about medical mistakes?

Write people an extremely hefty fine if they are involved in an accident while texting. Make it easier to convict them on involuntary manslaughter charges if they were texting at the time they hit a pedestrian. If people can safely text, great. If not, punish them when they cause problems.

Because that obviously worked well for drunk driving? You know that 37% of all automobile fatalities still involve alcohol right? http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html

Sure that number may be down from previous years, but its still too high.

Realistically, while alcohol related deaths (due to accidents and such) are tragic, and rightfully much publicized in an attempt to raise awareness and prevent them, they are also statistically fairly insignificant. I'm citing this site, which is specifically dedicated to reducing alcohol traffic fatalities. If they have a bias it would be pump up the numbers rather than mitigate them. According to them around 14,000 people died do to alcohol related traffic accidents last year (in the US). Even if we doubled that number to account for other alcohol related accidents (which seems excessive), that's under 30,000 people. Compared to say, the number of people who died from heart disease, it's statistically nonexistent.

People still drink and drive, but at much lower rates than before.

[citation needed]

Drunk driving fatalities have steadily decreased over the years.

Correlation does not equal causation. Are the number of drunk driving ACCIDENTS less? The answer is no.
In 1983, there were about 43,900 drunk driving related accidents. In 2005, there were about... 43,400 drunk driving related accidents. No real change.
Source: http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html

The reason the number of FATALITIES have gone down is because vehicle safety has gone up, not because drunk driving has decreased.

Well, any state of war is bad (I think that's your point), but I offer you 416,000 examples of why "all states of war are equal" is a mistake to think. Compare that to the current war's 5,000ish figure and you can better visualize the point of the GGP.. BTW, figures are fatal U.S. military casualties only

... and compare that to drunk driving: In 2006, there were 13,470 fatalities in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver (BAC of .08 or higher) ... or heart disease, or cancer... relatively, this war has pretty light casualties.

OTOH, comparing those numbers to the risk of a terrorist attack on US soil, I have to say, who cares about homeland security? I'm much more likely to be hit by a drunk driver than I am to be attacked by a terrorist.

Here is some additional data, for those interested:

Binge Drinking by State
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/hea_alc_con_bin_dri-health-alcohol-consumption-binge-drinkers

DUI Laws by State - notice how the binge drinking states have lower fines
http://www.1800duilaws.com/forms/statesduilaws.asp

Drunk Driving Statistics - notice how the high binge drinking states do not correlate to high percentage of drunk driving fatalities
http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html

In states where people don't drink as much, there are more alcohol related fatalities! Why? Because they can neither drive nor handle their liquor! (ducks)

You are way off.

http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics-2005.html

It is kind of nice to be treated like an adult to have the choice to drink responsibly...key word there being personal choice. If you get busted driving drunk, it is as bad as anywhere else in the country.

Something stops being a "personal choice" when that "choice" can kill and cripple others. Whether you sleep with another adult is a personal choice (well, two or more choices). Whether you worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Jesus is a personal choice. Whether you drink Guinness or Heineken is a personal choice. Whether you drive drunk or not you drink responsibly is only a 'personal choice' if choosing the negative is negligence that can result in death for yourself and others.

La. has about twice the drunk driving fatalities per capita as the national average. Maybe one thinks that drive through alcohol stands are unrelated to this, but to brush them off as prima facie harmless is silly.

I agree with your point, but do get your facts straight. U.S. deaths due to drunk driving:
13,470 in 2006
http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html

I believe 50,000 is roughly the number of Americans killed per year by automobiles, but alcohol is involved in a fraction of those deaths. And yes, the war on terror is shameless, sickening, and a horrible waste.

Nope. Speeding does not cause accidents. This has been proven. Raising speed limits does not cause an increase in the number of accidents.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_19990425/ai_n11718981
http://www.hwysafety.com/hwy_montana_2001.htm
http://www.junkscience.com/nov98/peters2.html

As for alcohol, according to this 39% are alcohol are involved. "There were 16,885 alcohol-related fatalities in 2005 - 39 percent of the total traffic fatalities for the year."

So, I guess I need to revise my statement 61% of all accidents are caused by distracted drivers.

WHY are these bozos spending money on this? Who needs a driver-less car?
Personally, I can't think of a single reason. I'm certain that all people everywhere will begin paying designated drivers rather than spend that last $20 on 3 more shots of Jager. Besides, these first models won't work perfectly which obviously means they never will. Such pie-in-the-sky endeavors should never even be considered.

According to http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statisti cs.html
There were 16,694 alcohol-related fatalities in 2004 - 39 percent of the total traffic fatalities for the year.

That means that at least 61% of all traffic fatalities were caused by drivers that for some reason refused to drink before getting behind the wheel. This number is actually much higher since 43% of the alcohol related accidents were cause by a legally sober driver or an alcohol consuming "non-occupant".

But if a sober driver kills an alcohol-impaired pedestrian, it's still considered an alcohol-related crash.

It is obvious that the real problem with auto related deaths in this country is the fact that drivers refuse to drink before getting behind the wheel. Just think about how much safer the roads would be!

An even more telling statistic is seen if you scroll that page down about 1/2 way and look at the chart of auto accident fatalities from 1982-2004. The total number of traffic fatalities has remained fairly constant despite the percentage of alcohol related fatalities steadily falling during that time period. Seems to me that careless people will have accidents whether they are drunk or not.

(posting anonymously because I don't really believe any of this)

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Getting the stuff isn't hard since so many people don't like the law and many of those adults don't mind breaking a bad law.

I won't argue with you about how easy it is to get, but I would definitely take issue with your (and others') point that it's a "bad law".

See here: http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statisti cs.html
and here: http://www.alcoholstats.com/mm/docs/3612.pdf

The first link has a chart showing all alcohol-related traffic fatalities over the last 20 or so years, the second is a graph showing only teen drunk-driving fatalities.

To summarize, teen drunk driving deaths are at record lows, 67 percent lower than in 1982.

Now, granted, that's probably for a variety of reasons, even including those dumb PSA's you see on NBC during commercial breaks. But to suggest raising the drinking age has had no effect would be ridiculous. You'd have to argue that teen drunk driving deaths have dropped despite the raising of the drinking age rather than in part because of it. And that would be pretty idiotic. It's obvious that the law played a part, and probably a large part.

This law is more than likely saving several thousand kids per year, at the cost of what? Nobody under the age of 21 has any more "freedom" to drink alcohol than they have "freedom" to smoke crack or drive without a license. There are plenty of laws that restrict all sorts of things; just because you want to do those things doesn't make them inalienable rights, and there is no guarantee in any of our founding documents that says anything different.

I'm not saying all of these types of laws are good - certainly, many of them are not because they are far too sweeping (affecting all adults) and achieve no tangible benefits. (The all-out ban on certain less dangerous recreational drugs, for example.) But a 3 year increase to the drinking age has helped dramatically reduce alcohol-related traffic deaths while just forcing you to wait a little bit longer to drink legally. That's pretty much the definition of a good law.

Alcohol schmalcohol indeed.

Drunk driving fatalities total 17,000 a year, 39% of all fatal crashes.

Phones account for 1,032 fatalities a year, or 0.3% of all fatal crashes.

What was Toyota thinking? I can't believe they got distracted with something so insignificant...

Add up all of those what if's, and you'll still come up WAY short of the 17,000 people killed each year by drunk drivers.

I've never drank a drop of alcohol in my life, and never will, so I'd gladly see this feature in every car sold. Mandatory is fine with me.

47 people a day is a steep price to pay so some drunk can carelessly drive home. As far as I'm concerned every DUI should involve serious jail time, the permanent loss of the vehicle, and a steep fine.

Yeah, I'm sure this car will kill 17,000 people a year, making it more dangerous than the alternative.

Re your stat, actually the number of fatalities on America's highways is about 40k. Drunk driving alone is involved with 17k a year

To put it into perspective, since 9/11, about 30x as many people died because of drunk drivers than died in the attacks. Don't get me wrong, the attacks were brutal and I'm sure the guys who were piloting the planes didn't reach the heaven they thought they were reaching, but as a nation we are overreacting.....

http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statisti cs.html

Thats tens of thousands deaths every year. Do you think that would justify orwellian laws for drivers?