The Source of the Greatest Number of
innocent Victims is in The USA
January 18, 2016
If this doesn’t shock you, it
should. Allow me to explain.
Starting in the 60’s when
America went car crazy, 50,000 deaths and 150,000 disabled occurred and the reason
90+% were caused by drunk driving.
50,000 is the number of soldiers in the Vietnam war.
Auto safety devices (which
the GOP fought against) like air bags and crumple zones, reduced the numb of
fatalities to 30,000 by the 90’s.
The math: 50,000 per year in
the 60’s 70’s & 80’s = 150,000
30,000
per year in the 90’s 2000 through 2009 and approx. 20,00 in 2010-2016= 80,000
for a grand (not really grand but tragic) total of 230,000. (please do not nit pick the numbers, every caretaker involved in treating the victims of MVA's (motor vehicle accidents)), the police, the EMT's and the surgeons at the hospitals. Each group has a different estimate of what percentage of the deadly MVA's are alcohol related, because the importance of the concept is what matters. Does it matter if one group or another has an estimate of 10,000 more or less
really matter? I think not. The concept here is the enormous number of innocent causalities that occur on American roads.
really matter? I think not. The concept here is the enormous number of innocent causalities that occur on American roads.
That is more than all the
victims of innocent deaths in the same time period, except the Iraq war which
is estimated that 250,000 civilians were killed. Our loss of soldiers was 8,000.
This is even more despicable
because a solution is known. The French
have a tough law: DWI and you go strait to jail for 2 years. No trial, no appeals. Result: France has only a handful of
fatalities. The French love their wine
and at night everyone has been drinking.
If they drink away from home, they take a taxi or some other alternative
to driving.
So why doesn’t our government
adopt these tough laws that have been proven to work? Lawmaking in the USA, at both the Federal and
State levels is not done in the conference rooms but at cocktail “parties”
where virtually everyone is drunk or has enough alcohol to make them illegal
drivers.
Shame on us for not
pressuring our law makers to pass tough laws like the French. The politicians don’t want such laws because
the would be the first to get caught and penalized. Or they could change there behavior. Do we want our lawmakers drunk while
negotiating our laws. I don’t think so.
No, I know we want sober politicians.
Sober politicians would legislate better.
So “My Fellow Americans” (as
LBJ used to say) let’s turn of the TV’s, video games and other distractions and
get this job done. 30,000 innocent lives
per year depend on taking this action.
The fact that we have already
lost 230,000 lives, is shameful.
But we can do better. There is a shift in the effectiveness of the
99% protesting efforts. There have
several victories, like forcing Shell oil to abandon a plan to develop drilling
and pipe lines in the Alaskan wilderness.
By the way, there is another level of resistance to changing our laws to have more aggressive laws to protect the population: The majority of politicians in both State (especially Texas) and Federal legislatures are sociopaths, and they do not care and are biologically incapable of caring, about the massive number of innocent people killed by drunk driving. However, their resistance can be overcome by massive uprising of the 99%.
Another major to everyone who drives in our cities (90% of the population) is the stress of driving. The speeds and poor driving skills of the average American, activates the "fight or flight" system: and this elevates our blood pressure, heart rate and releases chemical messengers that increases our stress, even when we are not aware of it. Those who drive in heavy traffic (rush hour in the morning and evening after getting off work) and particular at high speeds on the freeways, are in a chronic state of physiological stress which wares us down over time, even when we feel like we are "used to" it.
So even when we feel like we are used to it and are not conscious of the chronic stress of driving, we have our life spans shortened by daily driving.
By the way, there is another level of resistance to changing our laws to have more aggressive laws to protect the population: The majority of politicians in both State (especially Texas) and Federal legislatures are sociopaths, and they do not care and are biologically incapable of caring, about the massive number of innocent people killed by drunk driving. However, their resistance can be overcome by massive uprising of the 99%.
Another major to everyone who drives in our cities (90% of the population) is the stress of driving. The speeds and poor driving skills of the average American, activates the "fight or flight" system: and this elevates our blood pressure, heart rate and releases chemical messengers that increases our stress, even when we are not aware of it. Those who drive in heavy traffic (rush hour in the morning and evening after getting off work) and particular at high speeds on the freeways, are in a chronic state of physiological stress which wares us down over time, even when we feel like we are "used to" it.
So even when we feel like we are used to it and are not conscious of the chronic stress of driving, we have our life spans shortened by daily driving.
Morris Creedon-McVean, DO
A gentleman and a scholar
Austin, Texas
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