A new nationwide report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows fatal-alcohol-impaired-driving crashes increased by 3.2 percent from 2014 to 2015.
Other key findings in the report include:
- In 2015, there were 10,265 fatalities in motor vehicle traffic crashes involving drivers with BACs of .08 grams per decileter (g/dL) or higher. This totaled 29 percent of all traffic fatalities for the year.
- An average of one alcohol-impaired-driving fatality occurred every 51 minutes in 2015.
- The estimated economic cost of all alcohol-impaired-driving crashes in the United States in 2010 (the most recent year for which cost data is available) was $44 billion.
- Of the traffic fatalities among children 14 and younger in 2015, 16 percent occurred in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes.
- In 2015, the 21- to 24-year-old age group had the highest percentage (28 percent) of drivers with BACs of .08 g/dL or higher in fatal crashes compared to other age groups.
- The percentage of drivers with BACs of .08 g/dL or higher in fatal crashes in 2015 was highest for fatalities involving motorcycle riders (27%), compared to passenger cars (21 percent), light trucks (20 percent), and large trucks (2 percent).
- The rate of alcohol impairment among drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2015 was 3.5 times higher when the fatal crashes occurred at night than during the day.
- Among the 10,265 alcohol-impaired- driving fatalities in 2015, 67 percent (6,865) were in crashes in which at least one driver in the crash had a BAC of .15 g/dL or higher.
In Texas, the number of fatal-alcohol-impaired-driving crashes went down in 2015, however the decrease comes on the heels of a three-year increase in those crashes.
Read the full report. Find out how your state did at https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/stsi.htm#
