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ICJI > Governor's Council on Impaired & Dangerous Driving > Impaired Driving Prevention > Did you know? Did you know?

  • Every 31 minutes someone is killed in an impaired driving crash.
    (NHTSA, 2005 Alcohol Traffic Safety Fact Sheet)
  • Alcohol is a factor in at least 39% of all fatal crashes in the nation.
    (NHTSA, 2005 Alcohol Traffic Safety Fact Sheet)
  • Alcohol is a factor in at least 33% of all fatal crashes in Indiana.
    (NHTSA, Indiana 2005 Crash Facts.)
  • An estimated three out of every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related traffic crash sometime during their lives. (NHTSA, 2001)
  • More than 1/3 of pedestrians killed age 16 and older had a BAC level of .08 or higher.
    (NHTSA, 2005 Alcohol Traffic Safety Fact Sheet)
  • Americans rank impaired driving as their number one highway safety concern.
  • Traffic fatalities in alcohol-related crashes fell by 0.2 percent, from 16,919 in 2004 to 16,885 in 2005. The 16,885 alcohol-related fatalities in 2005 (39% of total traffic fatalities for the year) represent a 5-percent reduction from the 17,732 alcohol related fatalities reported in 1995 (42% of the total).
    (NHTSA, 2005 Alcohol Traffic Safety Fact Sheet)
  • Intoxication rates for drivers in fatal crashes in 2005 were highest for motorcycle operators (27 percent) and lowest for drivers of large trucks (1 percent).
    (NHTSA, 2005)
  • Of the general driving age public, 98 % see drinking and driving as a threat to their personal safety and 86 % feel it is very important to do something to reduce the problem. (Gallup Organization, 2000)
  • In 2005, more that half (52%) of the drivers involved in fatal crashes who had been drinking had a BAC of .16 or greater.
    (NHTSA 2005 Crash Facts)
  • Impairment is not determined by the type of drink, but rather by the amount of alcohol ingested over a specific period of time.
    (IIHS, November 2001)
  • Alcohol is society's legal, oldest and most popular drug.
    (Narcotic Educational Foundation of America, 2002)
  • Beer is the most common drink consumed by people stopped for alcohol-impaired driving or involved in alcohol-related crashes.
    (IIHS, November 2001)
  • An estimated 254,000 people were injured in crashes nationwide where Police reported that alcohol was present – an average of one person injured every 2 minutes.
    (2005 State Alcohol Estimates)
  • In real dollars, alcohol costs less today than in 1981 because alcohol excise tax rates have failed to keep up with inflation.
    (Drug Strategies, 1999)
  • Alcohol-related fatalities are caused primarily by the consumption of beer (80 percent) followed by liquor/wine at 20 percent.
    (Runge, 2002)
  • The impact of alcohol involvement increases with injury severity. Alcohol-involved crashes accounted for 10 percent of property damage only crash costs, 21 percent of nonfatal injury crashes, and 46 percent of fatal injury crash costs.
    (NHTSA, 2002)
  • In 2004, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program estimated that over 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. This is an arrest rate of 1 for every 139 licensed drivers in the United States.
    (2005 data not yet available.)
  • The average person metabolizes alcohol at the rate of about one drink per hour. Only time will sober a person up. Drinking strong coffee, exercising or taking a cold shower will not help. (Michigan State University, 2002)
  • For fatal crashes occurring from midnight to 3:00 a.m., 77 percent involved alcohol.
    (2005 State Alcohol Estimates)
  • Drunk driving is the nation's most frequently committed violent crime.
    (MADD, 2006)
  • The rate of alcohol involvement in fatal crashes is more than 3 times as high at night as during the day (61 percent vs. 18 percent).
    (Alcohol Involvement in Fatal Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes, 2003)
  • The speed of alcohol absorption affects the rate at which one becomes drunk. Unlike foods, alcohol does not have to be slowly digested. As a person drinks faster than the alcohol can be eliminated, the drug accumulates in the body, resulting in higher and higher levels of alcohol in the blood.
    (Narcotic Education Foundation of America, 2002)
  • A standard drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits, all of which contain the same amount of alcohol
    (NIAAA, 1997)
  • Thirty percent of all fatal crashes during the week were alcohol-related, compared to 53 percent on weekends.
    (2005 State Alcohol Estimates)

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