# What are the odds of getting a DUI when you are driving drunk

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-of-getting-a-dui-when-you-are-driving-drunk/804896>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 19, 2017, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-of-getting-a-dui-when-you-are-driving-drunk/804896 "2017-12-19T22:48:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-of-getting-a-dui-when-you-are-driving-drunk/804896/41 "2017-12-22T15:24:29Z")

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> [@MikeF](#):
>
> I was ninja’d by jz78817. I’ve seen many questions regarding the odds of something happening when there is no randomness involved and it always irks me. Even if getting stopped/arrested for DUI was random, the odds would still be l unknowable since you can’t be certain as to how many times people drive drunk.

I agree on the elusiveness of a meaningful stat from a given person’s POV, but am puzzled by both your posts about ‘no randomness involved’. Of course there’s randomness involved. There’s a group of people the police who move around partly randomly, whose powers of observation and degree of interest in their job varies (so depends which you happen to encounter), etc. None of that plays out until you drive drunk in a particular situation and come across members of the police or not. Although again I agree the odds vary so much depending on the situation that an overall figure, and further considering the measurement issues for even a single overall figure, is not very useful for any given person and situation.

Again IMO it’s somewhat like a murder rate, where in the relevant chapter of ‘US v the World Internet Challenge’ foreigners in countries with lower rates tell disembodied Americans they have a much higher chance of being murdered (than the writer, personally it’s usually implied), which is basically nonsensical if you don’t know both people’s particular situation. Chance of victimization by individual circumstance varies by orders of magnitude v country to country averages which only vary by a relatively small multiple. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of randomness in who gets murdered.

Maybe it’s a nitpick since we agree at the bottom line, just made me wonder how you guys define ‘randomness’.

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