Drunk Driving

Alcohol is a large cause of car accidents. There is an alcohol-related traffic fatality every 30 minutes, and an alcohol-related traffic injury every 2 minutes. Alcohol-related crashes are defined as those where someone involved, either a driver or a pedestrian or another nonoccupant, had a traceable amount of alcohol in his or her blood. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 17,401 people died in alcohol-related crashes in 2003 and alcohol was involved in 40 percent of all crash fatalities. About 1.5 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics in 2002. The arrest rate works out to one arrest for every 137 licensed drivers in the United States.Antidrunk driving campaigns especially target drivers under the age of 21, repeat offenders, and 21 to 34 year olds, the age group that is responsible for more alcohol-related fatal crashes than any other. Young drivers are the ones that are the least responsive to arguments against drunk driving, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.To make sellers and servers of liquor more careful about to whom and how they serve drinks, 43 states and the District of Columbia hold liquor servers legally liable for the damage a drunk driver causes. http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/drunk/ Also, 21-34 Year old drinking drivers comprise approximately half of all the drunk drivers involved in alcohol-related fatal crashes, and have the highest blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) in fatal crashes. (NCADD) Approximately 79 percent of legally drunk drivers have BACs greater than .15 and 52 percent exceed .20. Drivers with BACs over .15 are more than 200 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than non-drinking drivers, and those with BACs over .20 are 460 times more likely.These hard core drunk drivers account for only one percent of all drivers on the road at night and on weekends, while representing nearly half of all fatal crashes at that time. http://www.usd394.com/rhhs/sadd.shtml