Conditions and Performance Chapter Listing

Conditions and Performance Home Page

Introduction

Summary

Highway Safety

Transit Safety

Alcohol Involvement in Crashes

Alcohol-impaired driving is a serious public safety problem in the United States. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that alcohol was involved in 39 percent of fatal crashes and in 7 percent of all crashes in 1997. There are three main groups involved in alcohol-impaired driving:

• The largest group, 21 to 34-year-old young adults, is responsible for approximately 50 percent of all crashes. Recent studies also indicate these drivers tend to have much higher levels of intoxication than other age groups.
• While chronic drunk drivers represent only 1 percent of all drivers on weekend nights, they represent nearly 50 percent of fatal crashes at that time.
• Underage drinkers are disproportionately overrepresented in impaired driving statistics. Not only are they inexperienced new drivers, but they are inexperienced drinkers.

In addition to the problems caused by alcohol-impaired drivers, alcohol is also a significant factor in pedestrian-related fatalities. In nearly 30 percent of pedestrian fatalities, the victims were alcohol-impaired.

Since the 1980s, officials at every level of government have worked with the private sector to aggressively reduce alcohol-impaired driving. Like the safety belt campaign, this effort has used a combination of education and law enforcement to curtail the problem. Additionally, all States and the District of Columbia now have 21-year-old minimum drinking age laws. NHTSA estimates that these laws have reduced traffic fatalities involving drivers 18 to 20 years old by 13 percent, and that these statutes have saved over 17,000 lives since 1975.

While the campaign against impaired driving continues, evidence suggests that this has profoundly reduced fatalities in the United States. The number of alcohol-impaired fatalities has plummeted in the United States, from 25,165 in 1982 to 16,189 in 1997. The proportion of fatalities attributable to alcohol dropped from about 57 percent in 1982 to 39 percent in 1997. Exhibit 5-8 describes this trend.

Exhibit 5-8

Fatalities Attributed to Alcohol, 1982-1997

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Fatality Analysis Report System, 1997.