Drunk Hawaii

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Hawaii has the highest drunk driving rate in the nation. At the link is a chart of all 50 states. Any guess which district in Hawaii has the highest rate (assuming visitors on vacation do their drinking at the resort)?

http://www.livescience.com/51774-drunk-d...state.html

[birdmove]

Something is wrong there. Here's the quote just berofe they show state by state numbers. "The numbers below are the reported in number of drunk-driving incidents per 1,000 people in the population."

Then it shows "Hawaii 995". Did they mean to write number of incidents per 1,000,000 people in the population? Or are they telling me out of 1000 people 995 have been arrested for drunk driving?

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[leilanidude]

I belive that more drivers are high, than drunk. Police don't want to bother with trying to prove driving while high.

[Gus]

According to the CDC, Hawaii has the most drunk drivers. They get the results by a survey which asks if you ever, in your lifetime, have ever driven drunk. About 500 out of a thousand said yes. I would have had to say yes and I haven't had more than a sip in 30 years. That's way different than 955 or 500 out of a thousand driving around drunk at this moment.

[TomK]

I agree with Jon, the article doesn't make sense. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to give a reference to the source data, but I did find this from the CDC, the apparent source of the data:

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/pd..._in_hi.pdf

They're using the same definition, i.e., drivers who report driving drunk in the last 30 days (not arrests), but in this case they give the result as a percentage, which is 2.9% (almost certainly a lower limit). The national average is 1.9%. I've been trying to figure out how to resolve the two numbers, i.e 2.9% cf. 99.5%, but haven't figured it out yet.

[pahoated]

These stat articles are always jumbled up plus they are based on surveys, not police databases (violation of privacy). This says they asked a sample group if they had driven while they were probably drunk in the past 30 days. It looks like the sample group was 1000 and in Hawaii, 995 said they had driven buzz drunk in the past 30 days, yeah, almost everybody they asked. No details about where they went in Hawaii for their survey groups. (We all know it was Puna, with that high of a percentage). It could be Hawaiians are just more honest than everybody else. It does seem like a lot of people come to Puna to live in real life "Leaving Las Vegas" (suicide by alcohol).

"Aloha also means goodbye. Aloha!"

[TomK]

PT, that's nonsense. If you were correct, how does that explain the reported numbers for all the other states? The numbers quoted in that article hardly equate to a national average of 1.9%. The article is wrong, simple as that.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

I think the study was conducted in this manner:
Let's say the sample size (number of people interviewed) was 1000.
The question was "how many times in the last 30 days did you drive after you drank too much."
If 30 people out of the 1000 answered 30 times (or every day) that would be 900 incidents.
So even if 970 of the 1000 sample answered 0 the total number of incidents would still be 900.
It their sample contained (randomly) some very regular drinkers, it could skewer the results toward the upper limit in the study.
Or it could be an accurate sample and we are a state with some tanked up drivers behind the wheel right now.

[TomK]

HOTPE - that would certainly explain the 995 number, but I still can't get from that to the 2.9% rate the CDC quote in their report. The problem for me is that the article seems to say it's using the same data as the CDC. That's why I don't get it. If only the article referenced the actual data source, I'm sure we could figure it out. It's not good science reporting.

[Guest]

What types of programs (new local jobs) could be set up to help or prevent Hawaii from staying at the top of this embarrassing list? Our police are stretched thin in this rural part of the island. We don't need them at DUI checkpoints by the dozens, or backing eachother up on our one highway when a DUI driver is spotted. We may need their presence around the main businesses in town, or need them patrolling a bit more within our growing problematic subdivisions.

Some ideas could range from A Specialized DUI Taxi service, or a bar associated designated driver program. Alcohol companies could be approached as well to come up with new ideas or programs to help the worst DUI stricken areas? Maybe a call on a friend in need program could be implemented? That may even rebate the friend called upon for the good deed. With a free gas fill up card, that could be used at your nearest participating gas station?

I don't think programs like those and others get seriously supported, respected, tried, or encouraged by our police. Maybe the police make a little to much money in these usually slow rural areas like Puna on these many DUI chances, tickets, and arrests. Or get some extra funding to continue these kind of dui community embarrassment tactics. The Printing or reprinting the names of the drunk drivers recently caught in the local newspaper is down right embarrassing on a small island as well, jmo. This way of dealing with these drunks does not seem to be making any difference as our ranking clearly will show us.