New CDC Report on Alcohol Impaired Driving Among Adults

New CDC Report on Alcohol Impaired Driving Among Adults

A new CDC report, entitled Alcohol-Impaired Driving Among Adults — United States, 2012, highlights the need to implement effective strategies to reduce alcohol-impaired driving in the U.S. In 2012, about 4.2 million U.S. adults reported driving while impaired by alcohol, resulting in about 121 million occurrences of alcohol-impaired driving annually.

Who Is Most at Risk?

Men accounted for 80% of alcohol-impaired driving occurrences, and young men aged 21-34 years reported 32% of all alcohol-impaired driving. The number of alcohol-impaired driving occurrences varied by state. In addition, alcohol-impaired driving was three times higher among those who reported not always wearing a seat belt compared with those who reported being always belted, and alcohol-impaired drivers living in states with a secondary seat belt law were less likely to report always wearing their seat belt (55%) compared with those in states with a primary law (74%).

What Can Be Done?

States and communities could consider increasing the use of effective interventions such as sobriety checkpoints, strictly enforcing 0.08 g/dL BAC laws and minimum legal drinking age laws, requiring ignition interlocks for all persons convicted of alcohol-impaired driving, and increasing alcohol taxes. To reduce alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, states and communities could also consider enacting or updating primary enforcement seat belt laws to cover all occupants, regardless of seating position.

Read the full report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/

Additional information on alcohol-impaired driving at: http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html