# Drunk Driver Survives Accident--Confirmation Bias? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 15, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792 "2008-02-15T20:04:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/21 "2008-02-16T17:37:00Z")
[QUOTE=Critical1] the reason a lot of drunks survive is the whole relaxed state they tend to be in. talk to an emt some time. I love hearing about people who tense up so much that they rupture their lungs when the impact hits, (ok I dont love it, but its interesting) on the flip side it seems almost any head injury a drunk gets ends up being fatal or permanent. the booze lets the brain swell more or something. [/QUOTE] Uh, really? Ex-EMT checks in Having been on countless motor vehicle accident scenes, plenty of which involved alcohol I would aim more for **Msmith537** ’s interpretation. They tend to be the “hitter” not the “hittee” placing them in a far less dangerous position for many types of impacts. Lots and lots of drunks die every day, they just don’t make the news. It also does not open the door for “feel good” legislation and such. You don’t see state legislatures enacing new laws/checkpoints/expanding police budgets to reduce fatalities because of the high numbers of drunk drivers are dying. As soon as a cute little girl gets turned into paste by a drunk driver we end up with the “name of cute little girl” ordinance and news stories, and discussions at city council meetings. Try opening that topic Resident: “yes mr councilman, my husband was driving drunk and was killed, what do you intend to do about it…” Councilman: “Sounds like this problem solved itself…next” WRT to the head injuries, IIRC alcohol does interfere with blood clotting to a small degree increasing the amount of damage sustained by intracranial bleeding. I swear I started typing before **quadgop** posted. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2008, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/22 "2008-02-16T21:59:20Z")
[QUOTE=mhendo] And, from [this report](http://www.popcenter.org/Library/researcherprojects/DevelopmentofPOPVolII.pdf) (pdf) about drunk-driving in Madison, Wisconsin: > [@](#): > > The person who dies in a fatal accident involving a drinking-driver in Madison is most often the driver himself. The second most likely victim is a passenger of the drinking driver. In the period from 1975 through 1980, only two persons who were neither an at-fault driver nor a passenger in the at fault vehicle were killed in an accident clearly attributable to a drinking-driver. [/QUOTE] If I read that article right, those statistics include single-vehicle accidents, which are pretty common for drunk drivers. Obviously in these cases the drunk driver is more likely to die, since there’s no other driver involved. To really address the OP’s question, though, you’d have to restrict the sample space to symmetric (head-on) two-car crashes in which one driver was drunk. ---
**Author:** ![WoodenTaco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@WoodenTaco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WoodenTaco)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2008, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/23 "2008-02-16T22:24:00Z")
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq] So, as I was trying to point out, the supposition of the OP is incorrect. [/QUOTE] What? > [@The OP](#): > > I’ve heard various explanations, **all of which sound false** to me: the drunk driver’s sheer drunkenness somehow keeps their body limp and therefore safe **(?!)**; the drunk driver usually sees the accident coming, so while he doesn’t have the reaction time to avoid it, he is often able to crash in such a way that damages him less; etc. > > I can imagine some more plausible reasons. Maybe drunks are more likely to collide in certain ways that are favorable to them (like t-boning another car, or the like). But **the more likely explanation for this myth would seem to be simple confirmation bias**. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2008, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/24 "2008-02-16T22:56:22Z")
I’m sorry, I must have misunderstood the point of the OP. It seemed to me that the OP was designed to produce an explanation for why the “myth” was true. This presupposes the idea that the myth is true. If the myth is not true, then the simple answer to the OP’s question is, “people will believe all sorts of silly things; in this case, what they believe is not true.” If the point of the OP was to produce confirmation that the belief is, indeed a myth, then I apologize for not understanding that. I notice that **Richard Parker** didn’t bother to add anything after my first posting, which made it pretty clear I didn’t think that the belief was supported by fact. Perhaps if he had simply clubbed me over the head at that point… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2008, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/25 "2008-02-16T22:58:28Z")
[QUOTE=Omphaloskeptic] If I read that article right, those statistics include single-vehicle accidents, which are pretty common for drunk drivers. Obviously in these cases the drunk driver is more likely to die, since there’s no other driver involved. To really address the OP’s question, though, you’d have to restrict the sample space to symmetric (head-on) two-car crashes in which one driver was drunk. [/QUOTE] I look forward, then, to your analysis of the tables and other data in the linked study. I offered it as one of the few pieces of information i could find. If you have statistics we’re not aware of, feel free to provide them. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2008, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/26 "2008-02-17T04:19:17Z")
[QUOTE=mhendo] I look forward, then, to your analysis of the tables and other data in the linked study. I offered it as one of the few pieces of information i could find. If you have statistics we’re not aware of, feel free to provide them. [/QUOTE] :dubious: Well, thank you for permission to post. I wasn’t trying to be insulting; I was just trying to point out that the statistics you referred to don’t appear to me to provide enough information to answer the OP’s question. I didn’t see any information that would answer the question in the remainder of the linked study either. This isn’t too surprising; there are enough variables to control for (collision symmetry, vehicle size, driver health) that you’d need more data to get an answer than available in this small study. I don’t have any reason to believe that drunk drivers are more likely to survive in a symmetric collision; the external impulsive forces in an accident are enough larger than typical muscular forces that I doubt “going limp” makes much of a difference. But I also don’t have any statistics to back that up. I will link to the [FARS](http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx) page, which has a lot of raw data. I am not sure if the data is fine-grained enough to answer this question, though. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2008, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/27 "2008-02-17T06:33:09Z")
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq] If the point of the OP was to produce confirmation that the belief is, indeed a myth, then I apologize for not understanding that. I notice that **Richard Parker** didn’t bother to add anything after my first posting, which made it pretty clear I didn’t think that the belief was supported by fact. Perhaps if he had simply clubbed me over the head at that point… 😃 [/QUOTE] I was just feeling unnecessarily pissy at being misunderstood, hence the sarcastic reply. I blame it on my girlfriend’s PMS–like a sympathetic pregnancy. My question is indeed whether this myth, which I presume to be false, has any basis in fact. And if it should have some basis in fact, what explains it. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2008, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/28 "2008-02-17T19:32:46Z")
It’s times like these that call for experimentation. The linked study answered the question well for single-vehicle accidents, but not for accidents involving two or more vehicles. I propose the following: We replicate a head-on collision in a laboratory, with monkeys as the drivers and passengers. In group 1, one monkey driver is drunk. In group 2, no monkeys are drunk. In group 3, the passenger monkey is drunk. We compare the mortality rates of the sober monkeys versus the drunk monkeys, and voila, we have our answer. Ok, so there’s some glaring problems, namely ethics and the difference in body mass/force distribution in humans vs monkeys. Maybe use computerized humanesque models that can determine fatal injury? I’m stumped. I thought monkeys would be funny at least, but now the thought makes me sad and angry :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2008, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/29 "2008-02-17T20:14:23Z")
[QUOTE=An Gadaí] I don’t fully understand the first quote, if the pedestrian the drunk driver hit was also drunk they some how weren’t innocent? [/QUOTE] When I’m a sober pedestrian approaching an intersection, and I have a green light or walk signal in my favor, and there is a car approaching on the street I’m about to cross, I will most likely pause to confirm that the approaching vehicle is _indeed going to stop_ before I actually cross. Similarly, I watch out for the driver who is attempting to make a free right turn across my path, and I make eye contact with him to verify that he sees me before I start across the street. If I still get hit, I’m most like an “innocent victim”. A drunk pedestrian, on the other hand, is more likely to see that he has a WALK signal in his favor and simply stagger out into the street, not noticing that the approaching driver isn’t even slowing down. The pedestrian in this case is a “not-so-innocent victim”. In other words when a drunk driver hits a sober pedestrian, odds are that the driver will be considered 100% at fault. But if the pedestrian is also drunk, then the fault may be divided 50/50 or 60/40 or whatever. I think it’s also likely that the sober pedestrian gets clipped while walking along the side of the road, whereas a drunk pedestrian is more likely to be hit because he tried to cross the street in front of an oncoming vehicle. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/30 "2008-02-18T02:35:13Z")
You’re less innocent because you didn’t see the guy who hit you? I don’t understand this. It reminds me of the “raped woman shouldn’t have worn short skirt” type mentality. It would be different if say the drunk person were climbing a tree and then fell out of it. Then they’re not an innocent victim of their own drunkeness, but if someone else kills me and I’m drunk how am I any less innocent than if I were sober? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/31 "2008-02-18T02:46:53Z")
[QUOTE=An Gadaí] You’re less innocent because you didn’t see the guy who hit you? I don’t understand this. It reminds me of the “raped woman shouldn’t have worn short skirt” type mentality. It would be different if say the drunk person were climbing a tree and then fell out of it. Then they’re not an innocent victim of their own drunkeness, but if someone else kills me and I’m drunk how am I any less innocent than if I were sober? [/QUOTE] No, you’re less innocent if you step out right in front of a car. Not that that means you deserve to get hit or anything, but it does mean that you caused or contributed to causing the accident. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/32 "2008-02-18T03:12:16Z")
[QUOTE=An Gadaí] You’re less innocent because you didn’t see the guy who hit you? I don’t understand this. It reminds me of the “raped woman shouldn’t have worn short skirt” type mentality. It would be different if say the drunk person were climbing a tree and then fell out of it. Then they’re not an innocent victim of their own drunkeness, but if someone else kills me and I’m drunk how am I any less innocent than if I were sober? [/QUOTE] Quoting myself: > [@](#): > > not noticing that the approaching driver isn’t even slowing down The drunk pedestrian in my example _does_ see the approaching car. But his state of inebriation causes him to severely misjudge the vehicle’s distance and speed and/or the driver’s intent to stop or not stop. Misjudging time, speed, and distance is very common when you’re drunk. My dad, a retired police officer, told me that every once in a while a police car stopped on the side of the highway gets plowed into by a drunk driver. This happens because one technique drunk drivers use to attempt to drive straight is to try to stay directly behind the car in front of them. So they spot the police car’s tail lights and move directly behind it … not realizing until it’s too late that the police car isn’t moving. There’s also the increased possibility of the drunk pedestrian stumbling and falling in the middle of the road, even if he in fact had plenty of room and time to cross safely. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/33 "2008-02-18T14:34:19Z")
[QUOTE=Phase42] My dad, a retired police officer, told me that every once in a while a police car stopped on the side of the highway gets plowed into by a drunk driver. [/QUOTE] Like [this?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al_9t6Q0md4) ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792/34 "2008-02-18T16:14:51Z")
[QUOTE=Loach] Like [this?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al_9t6Q0md4) [/QUOTE] BWAH-HA-HA-HA! Classic! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drunk-driver-survives-accident-confirmation-bias/437792.md?page=1)