Impaired Driving Resources

Government Resources

This injury fact sheet on alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes provides important information…

www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/index.html

This is a comprehensive NHTSA website dedicated to impaired driving …

www.nhtsa.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/menuitem.18e416bf1b09b6bbbf30811060008a0c/

This site from the DOT includes important information on how to combat impaired driving …
www.dol.gov/asp/programs/drugs/workingpartners/sp_iss/idhome.asp

Alcohol Misuse + Driving = Crashes

Scope of the problem:  Alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes

• 16,885 deaths (39%) of all fatal crashes and 500,000 injuries are alcohol-related.
  • 1 alcohol-related fatality every 31 minutes
  • 1 alcohol-related injury every 2 minutes (NHTSA, 2006)
• Drugs other than alcohol are involved in 18% of motor-vehicle-related driver deaths.  These other drugs are generally used in combination with alcohol.  (Jones et al 2003)
• 25% of occupational fatalities are motor-vehicle related  (DOL-BLS, 2005)

Alcohol impaired driving contributes to:

• 40% of crashes involving serious injury
• 30% of crashes involving minor injury
• 10 to 15% of minor crashes

Most drinking and driving episodes are undetected

• 159 million self-reported episodes of drunk driving each year
• 1.4 million arrests for DUI (driving under the influence)
• An arrest rate of 1 for every 135 licensed drivers
• 1 arrest occurs for every 772 drunk driving incidents (Quinlan et al. 2005)

Cost of alcohol-related crashes

• Alcohol accounts for about 22% of all costs associated with all motor vehicle crashes. (Blincoe et al. 2000)
• 15% of total costs to employers for all crashes are due to alcohol-related crashes by employees or their benefit eligible dependents
• Two-thirds of these crashes occur off-the-job

Drunk driving can be a symptom of a larger problem, alcohol misuse

• As many as one-third of impaired drivers have a previous DUI conviction.
• More than 50% of people arrested for DUI have serious drinking problems
• 16-29 year olds arrested for DUI are 4 times as likely to die in a future crash involving alcohol
• Drivers 30 years and older arrested for DUI are more than 11 times as likely to die in future alcohol-related crashes

The business case for addressing alcohol impaired driving in the workplace

• The vast majority of the 14 million Americans with alcohol problems are between 18 and 49 years old and are employed full-time.
• Light and moderate alcohol users cause 60% of alcohol-related problems. Dependent drinkers cause 40%.
• Employees who drink in ways that endanger safety and well-being—spend four times as many days in the hospital as the national
  average, mostly as the result of alcohol-related crashes.
• Employers can reap productivity gains and savings from a reduction in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes.  A University of Wisconsin study found problem drinkers that did not receive brief interventions had more traffic fatalities, 55% more crashes with nonfatal injuries and 46% more arrests.
• Employers are in a potentially unique position to change the way alcohol problems are addressed.