Driving After Drinking

Driving after drinking is deadly. Yet it still continues to happen across the United States. If you drive while impaired, you could get arrested, or worse — be involved in a traffic crash that causes serious injury or death.

Approximately one-third of all traffic crash fatalities in the United States involve drunk drivers (with BACs of .08 g/dL or higher). In 2018, there were 10,511 people killed in these preventable crashes. In fact, on average over the 10-year period from 2009-2018, more than 10,000 people died every year in drunk-driving crashes.

In every state, it’s illegal to drive with a BAC of .08 or higher, yet one person was killed in a drunk-driving crash every 50 minutes in the United States in 2018.

Men are more likely than women to be driving drunk in fatal crashes. In 2018, 21% of men were drunk in these crashes, compared to 14% for women.