If I hadn’t seen this on the AP website with my own eyes I would have assumed it came from the onion but apparently Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) really is protesting drunk driving in Grand Theft Auto IV. Yes, that’s right they feel that this game deserves to have it’s rating bumped up from mature to adults only because in addition to the ability to murder, rob banks, perform hits, pimp girls out and engage in wanton violence you can also drive drunk. This is so fucking stupid I’m actually at a loss for words. MADD seems to actually believe that we need to portray our murderously violent felons as believing in designated drivers “out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.”

This is just one more example of the idiotic tunnel vision of groups like MADD and our general irrationality in calculating costs and benefits. Ultimately drunk driving does differ in kind from any other kind of careless driving. If you drive after having just a little bit to drink and double the chance you will kill someone it’s no more harmful than driving while slightly sleepy, upset about your breakup or anything else that also doubles your chance of committing vehicular homicide. One might try to argue that drunk driving is in general far more dangerous than say driving while drowsy but this isn’t so clear.

According to the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) there are about 1,550 deaths annually where drowsiness is cited by the police as a factor. Admittedly this is a much lower number than the 15,829 alcohol related deaths reported in 2006. However, as the NHTSA says it is quite likely that drowsiness is radically under reported. After all the crash is quite likely to wake you up (or put you to sleep) and who is going to volunteer to the officer that they were too tired to be driving? Moreover, we should expect these figures to underrate the danger of drowsiness compared to drunk driving since drowsiness is not testable post-mortem while BAC is.

Of course it’s reasonable to think that strong moral condemnation of drunk driving is more likely to reduce deaths than similar moral condemnation of drowsy driving. I’m not sure¹. However, even if this justifies more severe treatment of drunk drivers and a greater degree of cultural condemnation it doesn’t justify importing your prejudices and unexamined emotional reactions into the debate. We should step back and take a look at which measures/responses are most likely to save lives and balance this against the costs. What I have a problem with is people judging drunk driving more harshly because drinking is considered `sinful’ while working late at the office is considered virtuous. The whole tone of moral outrage against drunk driving is a classic example of demonizing people who aren’t like you. Sure most of us may drink but even most drunk drivers likely don’t think of themselves as such (I’m a big man and only had…) while it’s much easier for everyone to identify with someone who had to drive while sleepy. Maybe we should try and change that but anytime we single out one activity like this I worry that we won’t make the correct trade offs.