Dear Mr. Sokol, I was truly moved by your account of the loss of your father at the hands of a drunk driver. While I know that no loss can exceed that of a beloved family member, my life, too, has been changed by the death of close childhood friends, whose promising lives were extinguished by a drunk driver. And so have the lives of many Americans. Drinking and driving is not synonymous with driving drunk, though you wouldn't know it by contemporary usage. It is not the act of drinking and driving that kills, it is the act of driving drunk.
Language is important.
It wouldn't have been so long ago that you and every other commentator would have used the accurate terminology in discussing this issue. The strategy took hold nationally. Even a guy sleeping it off in the back of a parked car that is struck by a non-drinking driver. This recidivist drunk driver is now and was then the overwhelming cause of highway carnage. Eighteen times the initial alcohol-impaired level.