Drunk Driving Stats

Dear FWWS Members:

When a person is arrested for suspicion of DUI, the law enforcement officer may inquire where a violator has been drinking and note such information in their report. Are there flaws with the data? Probably. After all, people may be lying or are just too drunk to give the real answer. Regardless, this data is reported and some general conclusions and trends can be gathered.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer recently acquired this data and compiled some lists of where violators had been drinking. You can see the original Seattle PI blog post at http://bit.ly/aJUt5o. Here are the links to their lists:

King county list for locations

WA state list for locations

The FWWS is proud to note that not one single winery is listed in the King county list. That means when drunk drivers were asked where they got drunk, zero said they got drunk at a winery. We are always interested in public safety issues in our org, so this data was welcome. We put family first in the FWWS. And we don’t want to see any new “In memory of…” signs on our roadways.

So to all you wineries, keep up the good work! Promote responsible drinking. Have servers get certified in Alcohol Server Training. Have taxi services on-call. Sell inexpensive one-time breathalyzers at your tasting rooms. We are all doing a great job and we want to make sure it stays that way.

As for the state-wide list, only one winery even gets listed. That’s not bad considering the total list contains 549 entries. And the winery is listed as #538.

Thanks for your time and keep up the good work!