A Brief History of Drunk Driving in Post-WWII America: Seminar Paper from Ben Kohntopp

With the rise of the automobile at the turn of the century came problems many people could not have predicted. Drunken driving was one of those problems. Individuals that go out onto the roads while intoxicated endanger not only their lives, but also the lives of their fellow drivers. Although the numbers have steadily decreased in past 17 years, the number of alcohol related deaths while driving in 2009 was over 12,000.[1] Although drunk driving may seem like a new phenomenon, the United States has always struggled with intoxicated drivers. Following World War II, the United States took many measures to crack down on the continuously high prevalence of intoxicated driving. Several states and cities around the country adopted aggressive drunk driving punishments that included fines and jail time for those caught driving under the influence of alcohol. Similarly, the role of law enforcement rapidly changed, giving police officers more authority by way of breath based testing that brought about even more new laws. In addition to this, there is the emergence of an ‘alcohol culture’ in the 1950s, whereby alcohol was a glamorous social activity. Ultimately, the questions I wish to answer would be; what perpetuated this drunken driving culture and what else did the nation do to stop it? Furthermore, what were the effects of alcohol on American society as a whole? My intention, therefore, is to show how and why the intoxicated driver became an important, albeit deadly, part of American life during the post World War II era.
Before analyzing the very nature of drunken driving, I would like to make clear exactly who the drunk driver truly is. According to Ross Homel in his book, Policing and Punishing the Drinking Driver: a Study of General and Specific Deterrence, the drunk driver is not a category of one specific group. Homel states, “Indeed, convicted offenders seem to consist of a variety of deviant subgroups… [However,] the bulk of crime is also committed by quite ordinary people in the face of particular temptations and opportunities.”[2] While the general notion of the intoxicated driver may be that of a drunk, who partakes in frequent binges of alcohol, getting behind the wheel and driving, there is little doubt that this simply is not always the case. Today, just as it was in the post war era, many drivers that are responsible for drunk driving are ordinary people. Therefore, I have dismissed the notion of the ‘drunk as a driver’ for my analysis; the drunk driver can be anybody. With this understood, it will be easier to explain the various issues that arose due to the intoxicated driver dilemma following World War II.
The United States was a very different place following the war. Immediately following the end of the war, car sales skyrocketed. As described by William S. Dutton in his article “Don’t Shoot Your Car Dealer”, auto salesmen could not come up with enough excuses for their customers to explain the severe shortage of cars available. In the article, he describes one war veteran’s return to his pre-war job as a car salesman who, “Eats, sleeps and works up to his neck in one of the country’s worst shortages – passenger automobiles.”[3] The automobile market in America following the war was a seller’s market, whereby consumers purchased nearly everything made for the public.[4] This increase of production and sales following the war brought with it an increase in drunk driving in America.
The late 1940s was an amazing time to be alive. The great and horrible World War was over and the United States had emerged from it as a new world power. As previously described, the auto industry was on the rise, as production shifted from the war effort back to civilian use. With the vast increase in new drivers, there came a new problem for the country: driver education. As described by David Wittels in a 1947 article, many drivers were simply not educated enough to be qualified to drive, as Wittels puts it, “…a ninety-horsepower, 3000 pound vehicle, in which one mistake can cost several lives.”[5] This is an important factor to consider when viewing the history of drunk driving in America. Instead of being a nation of well-educated and knowledgeable drivers, the United States was full of mostly unqualified drivers; adding alcohol to such a problem would only cause more problems.
Due to the increase in drunken driving, legislation on the issue was not very far behind. Before the war in 1938, Indiana had passed a law declaring the legal limit for intoxication at 0.15% blood alcohol content (BAC), nearly double the number it is in all states today, .08%.[6] While that might be a surprisingly high number for the United States of today, it may be more surprising to consider the fact that the last law pertaining to drunk driving had not been passed since 1910; 28 years prior.[7] Clearly, the issue of drunk driving was not of any concern to most state governments before the outbreak of World War II. However, once the war was over things began to change, and it all began in the backyard of the Big Three automakers in Detroit.
Detroit was a much different place after World War II than it is today. It was a thriving metropolis and the center of a booming auto industry. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler were the main reason for Detroit’s successes in the 1950s; the industrial American spirit was prevalent in every corner of the city. The Big Three did more than contribute to the economic well-being of the city, however. In the early 1940s, several big names such as Edsel Ford, C.E. Wilson of General Motors, and K.T. Keller of Chrysler, gave financial and moral support to the establishment of the Traffic Safety Association of Detroit.[8] After a few years of development and funding, the TSA was able to reduce death and injury from drunk driving by 93%.[9] By the time 1950 had arrived, the TSA was a vital part of traffic law enforcement in Detroit.
Under the guidance of William F. Hufstader (who also happened to be vice president of GM at the time), the TSA established several driver education and information programs. However, perhaps one of its more important actions was in the changes it made to the legal processes of drunken driving cases. No matter who was in court for a drunken driving citation, a jail sentence was inevitable. This was usually coupled with fines and a possible revocation of one’s drivers license, making the penalties for drunk driving in Detroit some of the strictest of anywhere in the country. The policy was simple and the short motto, “Drunk Drivers Go to Jail” was in most bars all across Detroit.[10] Even in its simplicity, however, it still worked. In 1949, eight years after its establishment, the TSA of Detroit was able to say that their city had the lowest auto accident death rate of any other large city in the country.[11] This begs the question: If Detroit was able to address the drunk driver dilemma successfully following the war, what were state governments doing in the same fight?
In September of 1957, the governor of California, Goodwin J. Knight, signed into law what was at the time the strictest drunken driving law of anywhere in the country. He tells the Saturday Evening Post in a 1958 article, “We Jail Drunken Drivers”:
Drivers who had been drinking are responsible for one of every five of all traffic accidents. And other states report similar statistics. This picture is not something to chuckle about or tolerate. My solution to the problem lies in swift, sure punishment for the drinking driver. If he causes injury, he goes to jail as well as paying a heavy fine. Even when no injury results, first conviction means either jail or a fine; and with the second conviction, a jail sentence is mandatory, in addition to the fine. There are no alternatives. The law does not permit bailouts, suspended sentences or probations.[12]
Because of Knight’s enthusiasm against drunk driving and the successes California saw in their drunken driving enforcement, many states passed similarly strict laws. In New York, drivers were required to submit to chemical testing if the police believed they were driving while intoxicated.[13] Not doing so resulted in a loss of license and a fine. In South Carolina, a law passed that made drunken driving penalties much harsher. It called for a one-year jail sentence (with thirty days being mandatory) for a second offense drunk driver and a three year (60 days mandatory) jail sentence for third time offender.[14] When it came to trying such laws, many courts had trouble considering what exactly drunk driving really classified as. While there were many straightforward cases of drunk drivers who received their punishments, there were also many cases that sat on the borderline of the usual definition of ‘drunken driving’.
One example of such a case took place in Tennessee in 1959. In Hester v. State[15], a man was apparently driving while drunk; however, in this case he was not technically driving the car. Rather, he was sitting at the wheel of his car and was pushed along the road by another car. He was convicted of his crime, yet he appealed, claiming that since his engine was not running and he was being pushed, he was not in fact driving the car. Regardless of this claim, Hester was still found guilty of driving while drunk and was punished with a 100$ fine and a 30-day jail sentence. According to the court, even if his car was not running he was still capable of controlling the car and could conceivably cause harm to others or himself. This case is a prime example of the difficulties that came out of the drunken driver issue. With so many more drivers out on the roads, there were not only more drunk drivers but also more variety in the cases of these drunk drivers. The drunken driving issue was not a simple fix, as there would always be exceptions to the rules that were set forth.
While it may have been the poster child for drunken driving law enforcement, even Detroit had its share of difficulties. In People v. Smith[16], an engineer working for the Overhead Conveyor Company was arrested and charged with drunk driving. However, there was a special condition in his case. In the name of ‘national security’, he was to install an overhead conveyor in a defense plant on the day he was to be in court. His attorney wrote a letter to the judge, and pleaded with him on the court date hoping for a delay in the case. However, it was to avail. The judge refused the request for a delay, and dismissed subsequent cases filed by the engineer, who claimed an “…abuse of discretion” when he was not granted a delay.[17] He was to forfeit his bond payment and, in a separate trial, was punished as a drunken driver in accordance with the TSA of Detroit’s strict enforcement. This was clearly another example of the new difficulties drunken driving law faced following the war. The courts not only had to deal with drunken driving cases, but also the unusual circumstances within those cases.
This begs the question: what were law enforcement officials doing in the first place to catch these drunken drivers? Prior to the arrival of testing for the presence of alcohol in a possible drunken driver, police officers would make arrests simply on the grounds of ‘reasonable suspicion’ most likely after the driver breaks a routine traffic law.[18] In 1938, however, there was a breakthrough. Dr. Rolla Harger, a biochemistry and pharmacology professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, patented a device that he called ‘the Drunkometer’.[19] In order to operate the Drunkometer, a certified police officer had the suspect blow into a balloon that was connected to a much larger apparatus. The air from the balloon then went into a chemical solution. If the person was intoxicated, the solution would change its color; the darker it became, the more intoxicated the individual. The officer would then calculate the individual’s drunkenness with a simple equation.[20] Even so, the inconvenience of the device coupled with its somewhat inaccurate readings made the courts and especially law enforcement call for a more portable and precise system. However, it would be another 15 years until Dr. Robert Borkenstein, a former student of Dr. Harger’s, would invent a device that police use to this very day, the breathalyzer.
After several years of the innovative Drunkometer, many cases were arising that questioned the accuracy of the device. When it came to testing those who were ill or on pharmaceutical drugs, the Drunkometer would sometimes declare them intoxicated. One interesting case of this is in the St. Petersburg Times from 1950. It describes a woman that collided with another car and was ruled (by way of the Drunkometer) to be intoxicated. According to her attorney Harold Soehl however, the City Court’s methods were, “Unfair… Star Chamberism.”[21] Soehl claimed that her client was not intoxicated; rather, she was having a reaction to the blood pressure medicine she had been taking which then appeared on the Drunkometer. It was because of cases like this one that made the breathalyzer so vital to law enforcement. When first introduced in the mid-1950s, the breathalyzer gave police officers a more portable and accurate system in reading a perpetrator’s drunkenness. As a police lieutenant in Indiana’s state police department, Dr. Borkenstein knew the problems that came with the Drunkometer, and his invention did away with most of them. It was much smaller, making the tests more readily available to the police. Instead of recalibrating and setting up the Drunkometer back in the police laboratory, officers were now able to test someone in the moment, making their cases much stronger in court.[22]
While there were a number of imitators that arose in the wake of the breathalyzers that performed the same basic function (such as the Alcometer and the Intoxometer)[23], there was little doubt that this new form of breath-based testing was here to stay. Yet what does the introduction of the breathalyzer say about the very nature of alcohol in America following the war? When considering the era following World War II many people conjure up images of the well dressed business man with a glass of brandy or a group of cool swingers casually sipping away at their martinis. However, with the introduction of the automobile at the turn of the century, alcohol would face a number of obstacles to its legitimacy. It was a vital part of the 1920s (a time when registered American automobiles ran into the tens of millions) even with the 18th amendment banning its distribution.[24] When the era of prohibition was over, America was deep within the Depression, and alcohol re-emerged as a prevalent component of the struggling nation.[25] There is little doubt that no matter what the government did in order to curb the usage of alcohol or what the country itself was going through, alcohol was always accessible. For this very reason, there was not an answer (nor will there be) to the drunken driver dilemma. No matter what state or city governments mandated, drinking and driving would always be a problem for law enforcement.
The high prevalence of alcohol created a certain ‘culture of alcohol’ in the late 1940s and through the 1950s, which was responsible in part due to the Hollywood movie way of life. Surrounding the glitz and glamour of movies from the late 1940s and 1950s was alcohol, and it was a prevalent theme in many movies. Films such as The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) were some of the most famous movies of the era whose plots were full of references to alcohol and alcoholism.[26] Actors such as Burt Lancaster, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, and female stars Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor all perpetuated this convention of alcohol in their movie roles.[27] Ironically, many of the biggest names in Hollywood at the time (most notably perhaps was Marilyn Monroe) struggled with alcoholism, showing a stark contrast between the glamorous roles they portrayed and the stark reality of their lives.
This ‘culture of alcohol’ did many things that affected the everyday person, especially within the family structure of the 1950s. In an article for the book, Altering American Consciousness: the History of Drug and Alcohol Use in the United States, Lori Rotskoff describes alcohol and alcoholism in the post-war era as a strictly male affair, associated with the breakdown of the 1950s ideal ‘nuclear family’.[28] Since families established the male as the head of the household, their role was much greater in the broad picture of a typical 1950s family. Therefore, alcoholism was a male problem and something that the wife had to support her husband in as he made his way through recovery.[29] In all actuality, the ‘culture of alcohol’ was a male affair no matter how one looked at it. Advertisements portrayed a man enjoying a social evening with fine spirits and friends while others showed a typical rugged man enjoying the outdoors, all while swigging an ice cold beer.[30] The male dominated alcohol culture is critical in the analysis of drunk driving following the war. The male dominance of 1950s society had men at the wheel of their cars; cars that they had worked hard for in order to purchase. It is no surprise then that in the court cases previously described, male offenders were a huge part of the drunken driving dilemma.
As the 1950s ended, the issue of drunk driving began to lose steam. Things stayed mostly stagnant in drunken driving law throughout most of the 1960s. In 1966, however, Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Safety Act, bringing with it a new era of safety out on the roads. Vehicles now had higher safety specifications according to government regulation and the roads received safety modifications, everything from more lighting on the roads to brighter reflective surfaces.[31] The introduction of this Act brought about a change in drunken driving enforcement as well. Public awareness of drunk driving was as high as it had ever been, and law enforcement became sterner as a result. The issue was getting more attention than ever by the 1970s. In 1978, the first anti-drunk driving organization, RID (Remove Intoxicated Drivers), was established.[32] It was the first of several such organizations, including MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving), BADD (Bikers…) and the Century Council.[33] Drunk driving had evolved from a simple societal no-no to a full-fledged, legal movement mostly due to the post-war era and the changes it had brought to the problem.
The history of drunk driving is not a simple affair. Before World War II, drunk driving was of little concern to most Americans. However, with the end of the war and subsequent automobile boom came a growing concern for the safety of people out on the roads of America. Coupled with a limited amount of driver education, the drunken driving dilemma became a prominent part of state and local legislation. The laws passed by California and the introduction of the TSA in Detroit were both part of a larger picture in the concern over drunk driving within America. Just as lawmakers and law enforcers gained an advantage like the breathalyzer, the problem seemed to shift. Unfortunately, they were up against a culture of alcohol that existed throughout the years following the war. Alcohol threatened everything from the basic family structure, to the very fabric of American society. Indeed, wherever alcohol was within society, the automobile was not far behind. No matter what legislators did or what organizations established, the issue persisted and continues to this very day. Ultimately, drunk driving is truly an ugly facet of life in America; nevertheless, it is an issue that this country cannot and has not ignored.
[1]David J. Hanson, PhD, “Drinking and Driving,” http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/DrinkingAndDriving.html (Feb. 3, 2010).
[2] Ross Homel, Policing and Punishing the Drinking Driver: A Study of General and Specific Deterrence (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1988), 19.
[3] William S. Dutton, "Don’t Shoot Your Car Dealer” Saturday Evening Post, December 4, 1948, 32, accessed November 28, 2010, http://web.ebscohost.com.
[4] Charles Self, “Buick in the Post-war Years,” Hemmings Motor News, Accessed Dec. 1, 2010, http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2009/03/01/hmn_feature1.html.
[5] David Wittels, "Should You Be Allowed to Drive?” Saturday Evening Post, December 6, 1947, accessed November 28, 2010, http://web.ebscohost.com.
[6] Sandy Golden, Driving the Drunk off the Road (Washington: Acropolis Book Ltd., 1983), 15.
[7]Ibid, 13.
[8] Sidney Shallet, "Don’t Get Drunk in Detroit," Saturday Evening Post, July 6, 1950, 33, accessed December 1, 2010, http://web.ebscohost.com.
[9]Ibid, 85
[10] Ibid, 86
[11] Ibid, 86
[12] Gov. Goodwin J. Knight and Bruce Lee, "We Jail Drunken Drivers,” Saturday Evening Post, April 3, 1958, 100, date accessed November 15, 2010, http://web.ebscohost.com.
[13] “Drunk Driver Test Decreed by State; Motorist Loses License if He Balks -- 'Nonfixable' Ticket Authorized" The New York Times, 21 April 1959, sec. 4, p. 29.
[14] “Bills Strengthen Laws Against Drunk Drivers in SC” The Rock Hill Herald, 4 February 1959, sec. 1, p. 5.
[15] Hester v. State, 196 Tenn. 680 (1959).
[16] People v. Smith, 334 Mich. 10 (1958).
[17] Ibid.
[18]James B. Jacobs, Drunk Driving: An American Dilemma (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 91.
[19] Ibid, 79.
[20] Ibid.
[21] “Drunkometer Test ‘Unfair’ Attorney Tells City Judge," St. Petersburg Times, 8 April 1950, sec. 4, E18.
[22] Jacobs, Drunk Driving: An American Dilemma, 97.
[23] H. Ward Smith and D.M. Lucas, "Breath Tests for Alcohol," Criminal Law Quarterly 1 (October 1959): 25.
[24] Dan Levine. “A Legal Drinking Age of 21 Does Not Reduce Drunk Driving,” in Drunk Driving, ed. James Haley (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002), 39.
[25] Ibid, 40
[26] Ibid, 212.
[27]Lori Rotskoff, Love on the Rocks: Men, Women and Alcohol in Post-World War II America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 211.
[28] Lori Rotskoff, “Sober Husbands and Supportive Wives: Marital Dramas of Alcoholism in Post-World War II America,” in Altering American Consciousness, ed. Sarah W. Tracy (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004), 310.
[29]Ibid, 312.
[30]Ibid, 317
[31] Elmer Staats The Drinking-Driver Problem -- What Can Be Done About It? (Washington D.C.: U.S. General Accounting Office, 1979), 11.
[32] Ibid, 29.
[33] Ibid.