Drunk Driving Facts

Alcohol is a hypnotic sedative and nervous system suppressive. Addiction to alcoholism has become a major social problem. Driving under influence of alcohol has become one of the common feature and cause of accidents today. As per studies carried out by NHTSA in 2006, Alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents under influence of alcohol kill someone every 31 minutes and injure someone every two minutes in US alone.

Have a look at the revealing statistics by another study held in US in 2006.
• Every year, in the U.S., about 600,000 and 10 percent - of all motor vehicle crashes recorded by police department are due to consumption of alcohol.
• Nearly 40% Americans are involved in an alcohol-related motor vehicle crash in their lifetime
• In Illinois during 2005, 56,680 people were arrested for DUI (Driving under Influence) which results into losing the driving privileges. by 90 percent of these people
• The ratio of lethal accidents in Illinois that are alcohol-related is roughly four times greater at night than during the day.
• In US, Nationally, each year, about 748,000 people suffer injuries in alcohol-related traffic crashes, an average of one person injured every minute. About 40,000 of these are severely affected.
• More than half of the 414 child passengers ages 14 and younger who died in alcohol-related crashes during 2005 were riding with the drinking driver (NHTSA 2006).
• In 2005, nearly 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics (Department of Justice 2005). That’s less than one percent of the 159 million self-reported episodes of alcohol–impaired driving among U.S. adults each year (Quinlan et al. 2005).
• Each year, crashes related to alcohol ingestion in the United States cost about $73 billion
• In 2005,in US, 48 children age 14 years and younger who were killed as pedestrians or pedal cyclists were hit by drivers under influence

Groups at Risks
• The percentage of male drivers involved in serious vehicle crashes is almost double than their female counterparts who have been recorded at a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08% or greater It is against the law to drive with a BAC of 0.08% or higher in most of the countries.
• At all BAC levels youths are more vulnerable to accidents compared with adult ones.
• Young men under the legal drinking age (18 to 20) are found driving while impaired due to ingestion of alcohol more frequently than any other age group
• Studies have shown that heavier drinkers usually prefer to drink at bars and other person's homes, and at multiple locations requiring shorter distances to cover after consumption Young drivers have been found to prefer drinking at private parties, while older, more educated drivers prefer bars and taverns
• Beer is the drink of choice in most cases of heavy drinking, binge drinking, drunk driving and underage drinking

Safety Belts and Alcohol
Approximately 12.8 percent of fatally injured intoxicated drivers used Safety belts as compared to 33 percent of sober drivers kill in crashes. The percentage of drivers using safety belts involved in serious crashes who have been impaired is at significantly lower rate than sober drivers

Blood Alcohol Content (BAC)
Measurement of concentration of alcohol in blood provides a common, standard platform to measure and compare the levels of intoxication. Alcohol Regulation Laws differ in their limits from one state to another. While in United States, 0.10% level is considered the legal limit for safe driving for common carriers and 0.04% BAC is considered for aviators; countries like Russia, Norway, Poland, Sweden permits the level of 20 mg/deciliter, while countries like Australia, Argentina permits 0.05% level of BAC. In India the legally permissible limit is 40 mg/deciliter, while. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Romania, and Czech Republic have completely banned this.

The effect of alcohol absorption is gradual and it depends upon the rate at which one becomes drunk. As a person drinks faster than the alcohol can be eliminated, more the drug accumulates in the body, which results in higher and increased levels of alcohol in the blood.

Preventive Measures
Effective measures to prevent injuries and deaths from impaired driving include:
• Uncompromisingly implement of existing BAC laws, minimum legal drinking age laws, and zero tolerance laws for drivers younger than 21 years old.
• Implementing compulsory blood alcohol testing when traffic crashes result in injury (National Committee on Injury Prevention and Control 1989).
• Immediate suspension of the driver's licenses of people who drive while intoxicated.
• Introduction of Sobriety checkpoints
• Introduction of Health promotion efforts which can employ an ecological framework to power economic, organizational, policy, and community action

Life is precious. It is in our hands to curb this menace.