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Homicides kill three times as many kids as drunk drivers

I've got a pet peeve against hyperbolic overstatements by tough-on-crime mavens who think, because the targets of their false statements are unpopular, no one will call them on putting out bad information. So I took umbrage in the comments to a post over at Sentencing Law & Policy when a commenter announced that, " drunk drivers kill enough people to fill a mid sized CITY 45,000-55,000 PEOPLE A YEAR." I replied that:your numbers are way off - according to NHTSA, there were 11,773 alcohol related traffic fatalities in 2008 - 8,027 of those were the drunk drivers themselves. (And of course, NHTSA reminds us that "The term 'alcohol-impaired' does not indicate that a crash or a fatality was caused by alcohol impairment.") The total number of US auto accident deaths of all types in 2008 was 37,261...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on April 27, 2010 (boomark / email).