101 CDOS Week 1: Drinking and Driving Published May 19, 2008 By Staff Reports 354th Fighter Wing Safety Office EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska -- Impaired Driving Alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes kill someone every 31 minutes and non-fatally injure someone every two minutes. But there are effective measures that can be taken to prevent injuries and deaths from impaired driving. Occurrence and Consequences · During 2005, 16,885 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, representing 39 percent of all traffic-related deaths. · In 2005, nearly 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. That's less than one percent of the 159 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults each year. · Drugs other than alcohol (e.g., marijuana and cocaine) are involved in about 18 percent of motor vehicle driver deaths. These other drugs are generally used in combination with alcohol. · 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. · In 2005, 48 children age 14 years and younger who were killed as pedestrians or pedal cyclists were struck by impaired drivers. Cost Each year, alcohol-related crashes in the United States cost about $51 billion. Groups at Risk · Male drivers involved in fatal motor vehicle crashes are almost twice as likely as female drivers to be intoxicated with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent or greater. It is illegal to drive with a BAC of, or more than 0.08 percent in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. · At all levels of blood-alcohol concentration, the risk of being involved in a crash is greater for young people than for older people. In 2005, 16 percent of drivers ages 16-20 who died in motor vehicle crashes had been drinking alcohol. · Young men ages 18-20 (under the legal drinking age) reported driving while impaired more frequently than any other age group. · Among motorcycle drivers killed in fatal crashes, 30 percent have BACs of 0.08 percent or greater. · Nearly half of the alcohol-impaired motorcyclists killed each year are age 40 or older, and motorcyclists ages 40 to 44 years have the highest percentage of fatalities with BACs of 0.08 percent or greater. · Among drivers involved in fatal crashes, those with BAC levels of 0.08 percent or higher were nine times more likely to have a prior conviction for driving while impaired than were drivers who had not consumed alcohol. Prevention Strategies Effective measures to prevent injuries and deaths from impaired driving include: · Aggressively enforcing existing 0.08 percent BAC laws, minimum legal drinking age laws, and zero tolerance laws for drivers younger than 21 years old in all states. · Promptly suspending the driver's licenses of people who drive while intoxicated. · Sobriety checkpoints. · Health promotion efforts that use an ecological framework to influence economic, organizational, policy, and school/community action. · Multi-faceted community-based approaches to alcohol control and DUI prevention. · Mandatory substance abuse assessment and treatment for driving-under-the-influence offenders. Other suggested measures include: · Reducing the legal limit for blood alcohol concentration to 0.05 percent. · Raising state and federal alcohol excise taxes. · Implementing compulsory blood alcohol testing when traffic crashes result in injury. CDC Research and Evaluation Actions to decrease alcohol-related fatal crashes involving young drivers have been effective. Over the past 20 years, alcohol-related fatal crash rates have decreased by 60 percent for drivers aged 16 to 17 years and 55 percent for drivers ages 18 to 20 years, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, this progress has stalled in the past few years. To further decrease alcohol-related fatal crashes among young drivers, communities need to implement and enforce strategies that are known to be effective, such as minimum legal drinking age laws and "zero tolerance" laws for drivers under 21 years of age. Bottom line is do yourself and everybody else a favor don't drink and drive.