Drinking and Driving

I think the statistics on drinking and driving speak for themselves.  Alcohol doesn’t mix with driving.  It impairs your judgment, plainly stated.

• On average someone is killed by a drunk driver every 45 minutes. In 2008, an estimated 11,773 people died in drunk driving related crashes—a decline of 9.8 percent from the 13,041 drunk driving related fatalities of 2007.
• Fifty to 75 percent of drunk drivers whose licenses are suspended continue to drive.
• Over 1.46 million drivers were arrested in 2006 for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. This is an arrest rate of 1 for every 139 licensed drivers in the United States.
• Of the over 159 million alcohol-impaired driving trips estimated that Americans took in 2002, over ten percent (18 million trips) were made by 18-20 year olds.
• Alcohol-related crashes in the United States cost the public an estimated $114.3 billion in 2000, including $51.1 billion in monetary costs and an estimated $63.2 billion in quality of life losses. People other than the drinking driver paid $71.6 billion of the alcohol-related crash bill, which is 63 percent of the total cost of these crashes.
• About three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives.
• A first time drunk driving offender on average has driven drunk 87 times prior to being arrested.
• In 2001, more than half a million people were injured in crashes where police reported that alcohol was present — an average of one person injured almost every minute.
  

After watching people I love and care about pay hundreds even thousands for drinking and driving in fines, it’s just not worth it and all of them when it is said and done, wish they had just called a cab/sober friend.