Long and short of drunken driving

Lessons against drunken driving turn like a wheel, where every year the statistics on fatal accidents are trumpeted and the wreckage of crashed cars are rolled onto high school lawns. Just this summer, Maryland officials launched a drunken-driving awareness campaign, bringing checkpoints to the roads and an advertising campaign aimed at young men.

Awareness seems to have worked, to a point. Fewer people are dying in drunken-driving crashes across the country than 20 years ago, but more recently, the numbers have flattened. Somehow, at some point in the night, those familiar lessons about designated drivers and taxi cabs aren?t getting through.