Drunk Driving Statistics Part 1

Thirty percent of Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related accident.

There were 13,491 deaths in 2006 due to drunk driving. However, in 2007 there was a 3.7 decrease with only 12,998 deaths from crashes involving drinking and driving. ( National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “2007 Traffic Safety Annual Assessment-Alcohol Impaired Driving Fatalities” DOT 811 016. Washington DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2008. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811016.PDF)

Alcohol-related traffic fatalities have gone down by 47%, from 30,000 to less than 16,000 since 1980 (when Mother Against Drunk Driving was founded). MADD is credited with having helped save over 358,000 lives. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration FARS data, 2004. In 1980, there were 51,091 traffic fatalities. If 60% were alcohol-related (as in 1982 when we had valid BAC data), that translates to 30,655 that were alcohol-related. It is reasonable to believe that the AR rate in 1980 was at least as high as 1982 (it was probably higher). So that is why we say when MADD started in 1980, there were over 30,000 AR fatalities.