Drinking and Driving Facts: Drunk Driving Fact Sheet

Alcohol consumption impairs abilities like alertness, judgment, comprehension, quick thinking, and reflexes, that are essential while driving. This causes a large number of alcohol related accidents each year in the US. Due to the dangers related with drunk driving, also known as Driving under Influence (DUI) or Driving While Intoxicated (DWI), it has been made illegal by all states in the US. Various penalties are associated with this offense, and means have been devised to curb this menace. Studies by various organizations have come out with the following drinking and driving facts.

Drunk Driving Facts

Blood Alcohol Concentration

Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) is a measure of the amount of alcohol in one's body. It is used to assess the level of intoxication of an individual for legal and medical issues. It represents the percentage of alcohol in deciliters of blood.

Statistics

• According to a survey done by the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTA), three out of every ten Americans are involved, at least once, in alcohol related accidents during their lifetime.
• In 2006, there were 17,941 deaths due to drunk driving in America. That constituted 41% of total deaths due to motor vehicle crashes.
• Drivers with high BAC levels are 385 times more likely, than sober drivers, to die in single vehicle crashes.
• Alcoholic related accidents cause a loss of about $73 billion every year in US.
• Individuals aged between 18-20 years constitute more than 10% of the total drunken driving trips in US.
• The percentage of alcohol related road accidents, in which teenagers are involved, is disturbingly high. Teenage drunk driving statistics show that, in 2007, 11% of the drunk driving deaths in US were caused by teens.

State Laws and Penalties

• Every state in the US has the authority of framing laws and penalties for driving under the influence of alcohol. However, all states have agreed to make driving illegal for a person with a BAC level of 0.08% or more.
• 43 states have made it illegal for all the occupants of a car, be it the driver or the passengers, to have an open bottle of alcohol present in the car.
• In most of the states, a drunk driving conviction is followed by license revocation. In case the driver fails, or refuses to take a medical test that would help estimate the amount of alcohol in his blood, his license may be canceled before the conviction is made. This is known as administrative license suspension.
• 9 states (Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, Illinois, Nebraska, Utah, New Mexico, and Washington) have made ignition interlock systems mandatory for drivers that have been convicted even once for driving when intoxicated.
• In Virginia, the license can be canceled for upto 1 year if a driver is found to be driving under influence of alcohol. For every consecutive conviction, the license is suspended for 3 years each time, with a possibility of a jail term from the second conviction onwards.
• In Texas, the laws are more relaxed. In this state, the driver's license is suspended only for 90 days after the first conviction. For every consecutive conviction, the license suspension term could extend to 180 days.

Effective Solutions

A study of the effectiveness of various measures to check drunk driving has come up with the following facts:

• Automatic cancellation of driving license seems to be the single most effective step to curb driving when intoxicated.
• Installing the ignition interlock system is preferred by most states, as it has been found to be an effective way of discouraging driving under the influence of alcohol. The ignition interlock system is a device that requires the driver to blow into an alcohol sensor unit that measures the level of alcohol in blood. The car cannot be started if the alcohol level in the driver's blood is found to exceed the permissible limit.
• Implementation of sobriety checkpoints have been found to lower the rate of fatal car crashes by about 22%.
• After the 0.08% BAC law was passed, incidents of alcohol related crashes dropped by 7%.
• Studies have found that raising the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) to 21 years has reduced the crashes due to drinking and driving, among people aged between 18 and 21 years, by 16%.
• Implementation of the Zero Tolerance Law reduced crashes by intoxicated young drivers by a further 11%.

Drunk driving is a serious menace to the society. Not only do we jeopardize our own lives, but also that of others, when we drive under the influence of alcohol. It is not a malaise that can't be treated. Our willingness to co-operate is the best solution to reduce drunk driving related fatalities.