Just before the Fourth of July, the organizers of SoberRide managed to scrape together the $31,000 they needed to keep the program running. MillerCoors kicked in $15,000 (which, presumably, it'll make back this weekend, one silver bullet at a time), and GEICO and anti-drunk driving group the Century Council each ponied up $5,000. The Restaurant Association of Washington chipped in $2,000.

Of course, there's no guarantee you won't have to wait several drunken hours for the free ride home. Still—happy birthday, America!

According to the latest NHTSA roadside survey, drivers caught with blood alcohol concentrations above the legal limit fell to 2.2 percent in 2007, compared to 7.5 percent in 1975. 

Until 2007, the feds were only equipped to measure boozing – 0.08 blood alcohol concentrations or higher mean you are legally drunk. But now, the NHTSA has spiffy new screening techniques that detect drug use too. Of the nighttime weekend drivers tested in 2007, 16.3 percent were on drugs – mostly marijuana, with cocaine in second place, followed by prescription pills, the NHTSA says.

Yeah, but how scientific is a survey of 300 stops nationwide?  What about all those others who weren’t caught up in the dragnets, would they be more likely to be drugged or smashed? And, the NHTSA has segregated out the "nighttime weekend" druggies, while the boozing data apparently includes stops at all times of day and night. Perhaps the announcement's true intent is to put drug users on warning that toking and tweaking no longer goes undetected.