Challenges to Humanitarian Legal Approaches for Eliminating the Hazards of Drunk Alcoholic Drivers

Authors

• Joseph W. Little, University of Florida School of Law

Publication Date

1970

Abstract

Two epidemics ravage this country. One is the plague of highway crashes that claims the lives of three scores of thousands of Americans each year. The other is the scourge of alcoholism that brings not only personal degradation to the lives of six million sufferers but also despair, hardship, suffering and death to countless nonalcoholic persons. As even a cursory review of current legal literature will reveal, research findings demonstrate beyond any doubt that these two epidemics are not mutually independent. Although one is rarely able to place definite causal blame upon any single factor in any instance, statistical evidence suggests that intoxicated drivers are involved in at least half the fatal highway crashes in this country, and that, of these drivers, at least half suffer from alcoholism in one of its manifold manifestations. In sum, the data support an inference that drunk alcoholic drivers are implicated in the highway deaths of approximately 15,000 persons each year and in the injuries of an uncounted legion of victims. In our society, which depends on private motorized transportation and encourages virtually unrestricted participation by every- one, drunk alcoholic drivers truly represent a grave hazard. What, then, is to be done about them?

Recommended Citation

Little, Joseph W. (1970) "Challenges to Humanitarian Legal Approaches for Eliminating the Hazards of Drunk Alcoholic Drivers," Georgia Law Review: Vol. 4: No. 2, Article 3.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol4/iss2/3