The author believes that one of the missions of social science is to indicate the distinction between the current social paradigm and reality, and the possibility of alternative paradigms with which social problems can be understood. This article attempts to fulfil this mission with respect to the phenomenon of drunk driving, especially in relation to policy in the USA. It postulates that a politically significant challenging new paradigm is emerging in competition with the dominant paradigm of drunk driving there. In the dominant paradigm, drunk driving coincides with serious criminal behaviour, which is either deliberately harmful or grossly negligent. The drunk driver is morally deviant, and the fundamental cause of this behaviour is a lack of moral responsibility. Another cause is an impotent criminal justice system that cannot deliver punishment and encourages potential law violators to believe that they can escape. The challenging paradigm leads to a broader range of possible countermeasures than has been available previously. It views drunk driving as a regrettable but foreseeable product of societies that accept the use of alcohol in leisure and largely depend on car transport. It is concernedmore with the causes of drunk driving, and easily handles the fact that drunk-driving victims and villains are similar people. Support for it is centred in the American public health movement
Abstract