BilliardsBoy
Wednesday, November 16th, 2005, 10:57 AM
Def an interesting topic to read up on.
QUOTE
A 2002 study of fatal two-car crashes by economists at Harvard University and the University of Chicago looked at a decade of data in the Department of Transportation's Fatality Analysis Reporting System and found a legally drunk driver was 13 times more likely to cause a fatal accident than a sober driver.
Drivers who had been drinking but were not legally intoxicated were seven times more likely to cause a fatal vehicle crash.
There were 17,013 alcohol-related traffic deaths in the United States reported to federal auto-safety regulators in 2003. Rhode Island had the worst record, with 55 percent of all traffic deaths alcohol-related.
Fifty-three percent of Hawaii's traffic deaths were blamed on drinking and driving, 50 percent in Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina; Montana 49 percent, South Dakota 48 percent, Texas 47 percent, Wisconsin 46 percent, Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts and New Mexico 45 percent and Illinois and Kansas 44 percent.
Nationally, 40 percent of traffic fatalities and about half of all trauma injuries are alcohol-related.
Utah had the lowest percentage of drunken driving-related deaths, just 15 percent.
The number of alcohol-related traffic deaths actually has fallen 25 percent since the 1980s because of tougher laws that lowered the blood-alcohol threshold for drunken driving to .08 percent and mandatory seat-belt laws. But alcohol-related deaths have reached a plateau despite enforcement efforts in many states.
DUI arrests rose 3.5 percent in California in 2003, but alcohol-related deaths increased for the fifth straight year. California has a zero-tolerance policy for driving under the influence by motorists under 21.
Nationally, the rate of fatalities in alcohol-related motor-vehicle crashes fell 12 percent from 1994 through 2003, from 6.7 to 5.9 per 100,000 population.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has endorsed a national goal to cut drunken driving-related traffic deaths in the United States 32 percent by 2010, to 4.0 per 100,000 population.
Up to 25 percent of alcohol-impaired drivers were on the road between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. -- a time when 60 percent of fatal crashes are blamed on drinking. They used quantitative economic analysis to determine the average cost to society per mile driven by drunks is 30 cents -- or an estimated $9 billion a year.