How Many Accidents Are Caused By Drunk drivers?
- November 12, 2018
It’s universally known as one of the most irresponsible, reckless, and preventable things an adult or teenager with a license can do.
Yet, it still happens countless times every single day. There are drunk driving accidents every single day, to the tune of 1 every 50 minutes in 2016.
You’ve probably guessed what I’m talking about by now—drunk driving.
Drunk driving is dangerous, and drunk driving accidents can cause serious injuries.
This is why most accidents will need a top drunk driving accident lawyer to get the maximum compensation.
In the article below, we will look at how many accidents are caused by drunk drivers.
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How Many People Drink Alcohol?
Before we start breaking down the drunk driving statistics, let’s get a handle on how many people drink in the first place.
In 2015, 86.4% of people over the age of 18 reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their life.
70.1% of people reported that they drank alcohol in the past year, while 56% said they had consumed alcohol during the last month.
In the same year, 26.9% of people admitted to binge drinking in the past month, and 7.0% admitted to heavy alcohol use in the past month.
With numbers like that, you likely either drink, or you know someone who does.
Let’s take a look at how drinking alcohol affects us physically and mentally.
The Effects of Alcohol On The Body
Your BAC, or your Blood Alcohol Concentration, is the metric used to measure how much alcohol you have in your system.
Obviously, the higher your BAC, the more alcohol you have in your body.
Here’s what happens to you physically and mentally as your BAC rises.
Looking at that chart, it should be blatantly obvious how dangerous impaired driving can be.
Even at the lowest BAC, your judgment is already impaired, and your reaction time is much slower.
Even with that one can of beer, or that one glass of wine, makes you are already more likely to be involved in a car accident.
So how many accidents are actually caused by, or involve, a drunk driver?
Car Accidents Involving Drunk Drivers: By The Numbers
- 1 in 3 people will be involved in an accident involving a driver under the influence of alcohol in their lifetime.
- In 2016 alone, more than 1 million people were arrested for impaired driving or driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
- In 2016, 10,497 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for 28% of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.
- About 25% of car accidents with teens involve an underage drinker.
- Drunk driving costs the U.S. $132 billion every year.
- If all 17 million people who admitted to driving drunk in 2010 had their own state, it would be the fifth-largest in the U.S.
Fatal Crashes Involving Drunk Driving
The absolute worst outcome there could be after a night of drinking is an auto accident that results in life loss.
It’s highly preventable, and it is never, ever justified.
However, it still happens a lot more than it should. Although the numbers have been decreasing over the years, it is still an issue that needs to be resolved.
In 2017, for every 100,000 fatalities, 3.3 were related to drunk driving.
Drunk driving accounted for 29% of the total motor vehicle casualties in 2017. 10,874 people were killed in car accidents involving a driver with an illegal BAC, which is .08 or higher.
In 2016, 1,031 people under the age of 21 were killed in accidents involving alcohol.
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Preventing Drunk Driving
So what can we do to stop people from drinking and driving?
It seems easy, right? Just stop doing it.
But there must be more to it than that since it keeps happening.
The first step would be to implement laws and fines that discourage people from drinking and driving.
These laws already exist, but they obviously don’t stop all occurrences from happening.
Sobriety checkpoints are another step, no matter how annoying they might be, that can be taken to keep people from driving drunk.
There’s nothing like knowing a cop and a possible conviction and jail time is going to be waiting for you down the road after a long night of drinking to keep you from driving.
Mass media campaigns are another effective way to keep people from getting behind the wheel after drinking.
Demonizing drunk driving in the media and explaining the dangers and consequences of driving drunk can go a long way in convincing people not to drive drunk.
Reaching kids before they turn into adults is another effective way to reduce the rate of drunk driving.
School-based programs are excellent at convincing kids and teenagers not to ride with people who have been drinking.
Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that you will be involved in a car accident involving a drunk driver at some point in your life. So that being the case, you should always take the proper steps.
Getting Help After a Being Hit By A Drunk Driver in Georgia
Until we live in a society of people who never make poor decisions or go against their better judgment, fatal crashes due to driving intoxicated will always remain a possibility.
At The Brown Firm, our Georgia personal injury lawyers specialize in helping people who have been involved in a drunk driving crash as well as any other type of motor vehicle collision.
If you or someone you know has already been involved in an auto accident in Georgia, time may already be running out.
We can’t wait to help.
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