Car Models with the Most DUIs
insurify.com
insurify.com
These vehicles are the ones you are most likely to have a crash in and therefore be DUI'd, but also still survive said crash instead of dying. Obviously you could also be pulled over instead of crashing, but some cars may be under-represented in these figures because the driver does not survive.
The biggest influence is going to be whether you were wealthy enough. The difference between a DUI conviction and any other outcome is wealth and applying it toward a top-shelf DUI attorney. DUI attorneys traffic in leveraging their connections to either keep you out of court in the first place, get a favorable plea, a favorable prosecutor/judge, or if all that fails, find the tiniest little mistake in the case.
I'd suggest it's a large part if not almost entirely the massive improvements in crash safety that's taken place in automobiles. The improvements in that time range are insane and truly awesome.
2019 had 36,096 deaths, while the maximum ever was in 1972 at 54,589. Fatalities per 100 million VMT on the other hand shows real improvements, from 4.33 in 1972 down to 1.10 in 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
Thanks - interesting, I didn't know it's already required.
Makes a lot of sense - it did save my ass few times on other cars.
The rest of the cars, possibly excluding the Audi (which could be the urban WRX... maybe) represent people who generally make bad life choices. Driving drunk is just one more bad decision.
The rest of the cars are people who already demonstrate poor choices in life. DUI is just one more.
It sounds like you're trying look down on blue collar workers...
Because the majority of cars you didn't mention are workhorse trucks, and if you drive drunk then of course you make bad life decisions.
Why would WRX and Audi drivers be excluded?
Please tell me what the charitable interpretation of this is. How does owning a truck imply you make poor life decisions, but an Audi doesn't? I mean, at least a truck has some practical uses, while an Audi does nothing a car half the price doesn't.
What's even better is that this is just a garbage, clickbait "article" drawing silly conclusions and people use it to attack blue collar workers. Look at some of these comments. So strange.
Even if they represent the top 10 most sold, what if the shift in behaviors is one toward bad choices?
Gun sales began increasing in 2003 and spiked in 2020 (and were only a bit less in 2021). This suggests a general behavior. Do we accept a general behavior to be ok because it's general? I say this not to specifically tie guns to trucks, although it is a very common association. My point is that poor choices can be a representation of... poor choices, regardless of the outcome. More trucks. More DUI? More guns?
Most drivers do not need a truck. For trucks to rank so highly in sales (and in DUIs) suggests that a lot of people make bad choices. Driving drunk is just one more bad choice.
I imagine the US also has the same phenomenon of people picking cars to project an image and not to actually use. Are trucks the in thing now? Can this list simply correlate to the current fashion?
S10 is in for example, as a workhorse. It also hasn't produced since 2004, so it's not a show off purchase.
F150 is an example of in as a more showy-off purchase (but also gets used as a workhorse by some)
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/the-dange...
So, can you please expand on what "types" of people are buying and driving these vehicles? Because it seems to me they are incredibly popular.
Unless you're hauling stuff or towing stuff, a truck is impractical. It takes more physical space, uses more fuel, weighs more (and thus wears brakes and tires faster, turns more poorly, accelerates more poorly, brakes more poorly), and increasingly costs more. But it projects an image: You are tough. You belong. You are a man. You are patriotic.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love a Rivian. But a Dodge truck is loud, fuel inefficent, unreliable, and aesthetically crude.
In October 2021, Ford trucks were the most sold vehicles in the US. By the end of the year, Dodge actually surpassed that with the RAM. Prior to 2021 it was much more a Ford dominance. So why is there no Ford truck in the top 10? It would appear that people who buy Dodge vehicles make poorer choices regarding driving drunk, or perhaps they're just worse drivers and get caught more than drunk Ford drivers do.
The rise in popularity amongst people who aren't tradies is newish though. The guy in my building that owns a ute is a youngish guy who - not to type cast - looks very white collar. I've only ever seen him drive it alone.
It's a matter of reasons for choices. If you're blue collar, does that suggest you cannot discern between utility vs emotional appeal?
Ford sells TONS more truck than Dodge. Why does Dodge have more DUIs?
WRX cars are visceral creatures that beg to be spanked. They _want_ you to tear around the roads with them. That's what they are made for (well, not so much lately as they've gone soft). Audis are urban wannabe racers, so it's somewhat likely that their owners will still feel a need to race a bit. But without a doubt, nobody accidentally buys a WRX. There's no use case for a WRX other than playing on the roads. So a WRX driver will be screwing around with or without drinking. They will get pulled over a lot. Sometimes, occsionally maybe, they will have been drinking. Thus, they will show up as frequent DUI.
My second car was a Ford Contour and it's "fine", but also not the cheapest ford car. There was the Escort and the Fiesta in the same time period. Then, for a bit more was the Taurus.
A Dodge Ram 2500 is more expensive than a 1500 not to mention the smaller trucks like the Ford Ranger.
Point being these aren't just the cheapest cars. I think there is more going on here. It's a very odd list tbh.
There is virtually no analysis of options which could lead to "Dodge" unless it was some rare ridiculoudly cheap offering.
There may be an occasional Dodge model which miraculously isn't garbage and doesn't break all the time, but if one is limited to US brands it's more likely that a Ford or Chevy will be more reliable, equally or more fuel efficient, and no more unsubtle or flimsy inside than a Dodge.
I'm not American so have no idea why the Dodge RAM is so high - are RAM drivers more likely to drink? Is it because RAM is more common in certain communities? The Chevrolet S Truck is up there too - possibly for the same reasons as the RAM? Are these trucks really common?
Are any of these numbers rated based on overall sales numbers?
Dodge has a repuation for being the "toughest" and "boldest". It's not necessarily earned, as Ford trucks have done far more real work than Dodge trucks. But Dodge has Viper and Hellcat and SRT and other nonsense which is loud and obnoxious (and I do admit to some appreciation of their willingness to try wild stuff and actually pull it off).
Honestly, most people don't put a lot of thought and research into vehicle purchase (or any other life) choices. They don't make spreadsheets to compare options, weighting and scoring attributes. They watch TV, and the car ads (which comprise about 1/3 of all ads) lead them to their chocies.
If you own a home it's pretty reasonable to own a truck IMO.
You can pay someone to do the work that requires a truck for you. And for most people it's probably cheaper to do that. But if you're interested in doing your own projects then having a truck can be worth it.
Dodge has a reputation for being bold -- the kind of bold like the guy who wants to prove himself to his buddies (and misguidedly for the ladies) by breaking his beer bottle over the head of another guy at the bar.
It's not classist just as many stereotypes are statistically accurate, even if they don't represent all cases.
I was told once that if I want to look fast, drive red, if I actually want to go fast without being caught, drive black.
Pickup trucks represent bad life choices, but the Audi doesn't huh? Just...wow.
An Audi A4 is a practical 4-door town vehicle. It may be boring, but it's well made and comparatively efficient.
Nobody buys an A4 because they need to make up for feeling like a small person inside, but many truck owners buy their vehicles out of a need to show they are "not a pussy". It's a very cultural problem in the US, particularly rural areas.
Why don't they spend half the money on a Honda if they aren't trying to "make up" for something? An A4 is a "premium" car.
You seem to be able to tell a lot about a person based on their vehicle. What do you drive?
Nobody suggests that premium car drivers don't make bad choices. If I drove a Ferrari, I would get arrested all the time. Maybe once in a while it would be a DUI; but it would likely happen regardless of whether I had been drinking or not.
I've owned many cars (10) and driven many more (30+?). My bad behavior vehicle was a Honda CRX when I was young, and my favorite was a Lexus LS430 which I mostly drove under the speed limit. But every vehicle I owned reached it max speed at least once. Most of them did weekly... even my Honda Odyssey minivan.
The funny thing about driving is, when you make a mistake, you're more likely to be noticed. And if your vehicle is less capable, you're more likely to make a mistake. Just look at the incidences of Dodge Viper owners who looped their cars (often merely entering a freeway via a curved onramp). To put this into HN terms, Dodge vehicles are like C++. They require extra care to use properly. They can cause you grief from small mistakes, and they can allow you to full on shoot yourself in the foot because of their power. Granted, Dodge trucks aren't especially powerful, but relatively big engines with light rear ends can still cause problems if you're screwing around, especially if you're drunk.
You’re really saying reasonably priced pickups demonstrate poor life choices? A Hellcat or Range Rover would be a perfectly reasonable choice?
How about you just spell out clearly what you have against pickups?
While true, based on extensive data analysis, 100% of all conversations that start with "hey, hold my beer," ends with somebody getting into a truck and doing something ill-advised.
Fortunately, we've at least seen the latter reverse itself somewhat with the rise of "crossovers", which are basically just a popularization of the Subaru Outback-style slightly-lifted wagon/hatchback with AWD.
Drink driving, no excuse. Monique will think you're dumb.
Especially if you've got a Ute or van, sleep in a swag in the back, or stay at ya mates place.
You could compensate for this by only looking at DUIs within the last five years, but it didn't seem that that was a factor in this study.
The statistics don't back that up. Yes, the number of DUIs on an individual user's record increases monotonically, but that's an uninteresting observation and not what this is about. This is about the vehicle make/model that's being insured and that's highly likely to be the same as (or similar to) the one in which the DUI was incurred. The median age for DUI citations in the US is 30; the median overall is 38. Here are some more detailed statistics.
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
Drinking to DUI levels has always been more prevalent among the young. So has getting behind the wheel in that condition instead of getting a ride. People get more DUIs when they're young, and the vehicles mentioned definitely do correlate with a younger demographic. Not a lot of old folks in WRXes, unless you think 30 is old.
Also, would be interesting to see the same list segmented by state, I'm sure it will be quite different from one to another.
Probably everyone is giving them a wide berth as they apparently aren’t equipped with turn signals.
BMWs show up about 30% of the time in my notepad (in absolute numbers, not adjusted for how many BMWs are on the road here in the UK (5%)).
I would be shocked if BMWs (and Vauxhalls/Opel) aren't massively overrepresented in accident statistics here in the UK.
Also, not REALLY it's just a thing people say, but when you get cut off by a BMW that doesn't use it's turn signal it is not a surprise.
When I returned to my car, there was a note on my windshield to practice parking, which seemed like a diplomatic carefully chosen word
They hadn't seen why I had to park that way, but I feel like people expect a prick uncollaborative driver of BMWs, as opposed to the benefit of the doubt given to other cars (or simply not seeing a pattern with other models)
I’ve driven many cars and have gotten the most assumptions or odd treatment while using BMWs.
Its like right below driving a flashy sports car and having ppl follow you or want to race.
They definitely all have them installed.
If you don't have functional turning signals you can signal with arm gestures out the window instead and in that circumstance should not get a ticket -- or even be stopped -- for nonfunctional electronic signals, at least anywhere in the USA.
https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/drunk-driving-worst-counties...
That sounds like they have taken the average in a completely meaningless way.
Otherwise (having gone through some years as a single male) I totally get it.
Thank you for this.
The WRX has 270hp, completely average in its market. Honda Accords, VW GTI, Mazda3 -- and more-- all have similar performance.
So this study could start by normalising against the age of drivers, because the older the drivers, the more likely they've have had a DUI strike in their life.
“For each model, the share of drivers with a prior DUI violation was compared against the total population of motorists that owned that model. The 10 models with the highest proportion of drivers with a DUI were then selected”
A car released in 2022 that is popular with old people will have more drivers that have had a DUI violation than a car released in 2022 that is popular with 16 year olds, because the older folks would have had more chance to get DUI in their life.
Yeah, it would be better if that keyword was in the title.