There is a brief vignette in the uninspired movie Killers in which an inebriated guest is about to drive away after a wild party at the home of the film’s two leads. One of the film’s leads advises the departing guest to walk home. Readers of SuperFreakonomics will realize this is bad advice.
Eric Morris addresses readers’ drunk driving comments.
In SuperFreakonomics, far and away the most common subject of emails is drunk walking vs. drunk driving. In particular, every few days someone writes us to tell us that our analysis is wrong because we are comparing the rate of death per mile driven drunk versus the rate of death per mile walked drunk. Sure, they say, drunk walkers get killed more per mile. But since cars travel much faster, per hour, it is safer to drive drunk than to walk drunk.
Drinking alcohol puts people at high risk for all kinds of misfortunes. Exposure to date-rape drugs, however, doesn’t seem to be one of them.
In a study published in the British Journal of Criminology, more than half of the 200 university students surveyed said they knew someone whose drink had been spiked. But judging from evidence in police and medical records, these numbers are probably highly inflated.
Photo: Library of Congress There is a review of Kat Long‘s The Forbidden Apple in last Sunday’s New York Times. The review describes a number of incidents where efforts to ban or restrict transactions in one market spilled over with negative consequences into a related market. To eliminate drinking on Sundays, New York City restricted it to hotels. In response, . . .
| Do the characters of your favorite TV show end every episode by downing a tumbler of scotch? That on-screen booze cue is probably triggering you to end your day with one too, the BBC reports. (HT: Daniel Lippman) [%comments]
In the wake of a crackdown on black-market alcohol in Indonesia, the country’s sole legal alcohol importer is suddenly faced with meeting demand four times higher than what the government’s import quotas allow. The resulting crunch has led to chronic alcohol shortages and skyrocketing prices across the country, the BBC reports. Alcohol consumption is generally frowned upon in Indonesia — . . .
Photo: procsilas A coalition of college presidents has been pushing states to lower the drinking age as a way to discourage problem drinking on campuses. But here’s one unintended consequence of teaching young people responsible drinking habits: it could make Social Security bankrupt faster. A 2004 study by Frank Sloan and Jan Ostermann at Duke University found that heavy drinkers . . .
Why do brands of whiskey, rum, and gin stay constant, while new vodkas spring up like weeds? Dubner offers one explanation.