Good question. DUI used to be thought of as sort of a funny thing. People would laugh about the drunk weaving around on the road. And the penalties (if nobody was hurt) weren't very severe. The limits were pretty high (as high as 0.15 BAC). Then we changed the messaging and the consequences and lowered the limits and most people today think it's a very uncool and stupid thing to do.
I'm not at all suggesting it's an easy problem to solve, but if that is the cause of the increase in fatalities, that is the problem we should be attacking.
