One for the Road

Barron H. Lerner, a historian of medicine who teaches public health, traces American efforts to control drunk driving since the arrival of the automobile. He opens with an experiment: drink under a friend's watch with a Breathalyzer and notice how impaired one feels below the 0.08 percent legal limit. Lerner sets the clash between activists such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving and those who call the problem overstated against American attitudes toward alcoholism, driving, individualism and civil liberties. He traces the public's reluctance to take stronger steps to the love of drinking and of cars, weak public transportation, the alcohol lobby and lasting backlash against Prohibition. He connects that history to newer hazards such as drivers on cell phones.

Seth Godin found it surprisingly absorbing for an academic work, and said it sheds light on the workings of politics and industry and on a society that holds on to the status quo even at the cost of lives.