DWI & Drug-Related Accidents

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, driver-impaired accidents accounted for 39% of all fatalities in 2005. In Wisconsin in 2007, there were 8,327 alcohol-related accidents; 337 of which were fatal.

Other CDC facts:

• During 2005, 16,885 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, representing 39% of all traffic-related deaths (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).
• Drugs other than alcohol (e.g., marijuana and cocaine) are involved in about 18% of motor vehicle driver deaths. These other drugs are generally used in combination with alcohol (Jones et al. 2003).
• 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, 48 children age 14 years and younger who were killed as pedestrians or pedalcyclists were struck by impaired drivers (NHTSA 2006).
  

Cost

Each year, alcohol-related crashes in the United States cost about $51 billion (Blincoe et al. 2002).

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 (BAC) of 0.08% or greater (NHTSA 2006). It is illegal to drive with a BAC of 0.08% or higher 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 (Zador et al. 2000). In 2005, 16% of drivers ages 16 to 20 who died in motor vehicle crashes had been drinking alcohol (NHTSA 2006).
• Young men ages 18 to 20 (under the legal drinking age) reported driving while impaired more frequently than any other age group (Shults et al. 2002, Quinlan et al. 2005).
• Among motorcycle drivers killed in fatal crashes, 30% have BACs of 0.08% or greater (Paulozzi et al. 2004).
• 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% or greater (Paulozzi et al. 2004).
• Of the 1,946 traffic fatalities among children ages 0 to 14 years in 2005, 21% involved alcohol (NHTSA 2006b).
  Among drivers involved in fatal crashes, those with BAC levels of 0.08% or higher were nine times more likely to have a prior conviction for driving while impaired (DWI) than were drivers who had not consumed alcohol (NHTSA 2006).

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