Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) is a Crime.

An estimated 32% of fatal car crashes involve an intoxicated driver or pedestrian. Drinking alcohol and driving simply do not go together.  The human brain has to deal with many things and process countless data all the time.  Alcohol affects attentiveness and one’s ability to make quick decisions on the road, react to changes in the environment and execute specific, often difficult maneuvers behind the wheel.  When drinking alcohol, driving becomes dangerous – and is potentially lethal!

Despite increased public awareness, drinking and drugged driving continues:
• Nearly 13,000 people are killed each year in alcohol-related accidents
• Hundreds of thousands more are injured
• Alcohol-related crashes cost American taxpayers over $100 billion
• Over 1.4 million arrests for DWI each year (less than 1% of 159 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving) and 780,000 are convicted
• Two-thirds of those sentenced to incarceration are repeat offenders
All states in the U.S. have adopted .08% BAC (blood alcohol concentration) as the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle for drivers aged 21 years or older.

In 2012, the rate of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities per 100,000 population was 3.3, representing a 64% decrease since 1982, when record keeping began, and 48% since the inception of The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility in 1991. What this translates into is, for every 100,000 people in the US in 2012, slightly more than three people were killed in a drunk driving fatal crash, a rate that has been cut almost in half over the past two decades - down from a rate of 6.3 in 1991.

Alcohol-impaired driving fatalities accounted for 31% of the total vehicle traffic fatalities in 2012. Between 1991 and 2012, the rate of drunk driving fatalities per 100,000 population has decreased 48% nationally, and 63% among those under 21. These statistics and others are positive indicators of the gains being made to fight drunk driving, and while The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility cannot claim to be the sole influence in these reductions, it is likely we have played a significant role in reaching these historic low levels.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 33,561 people died in traffic crashes in 2012 in the United States (latest figures available), including an estimated 10,322 people who were killed in drunk driving crashes involving a driver with an illegal BAC (.08 or greater). Among the people killed in these drunk driving crashes, 65% were drivers (6,688), 27% were motor vehicle occupants (2,824), and 8% were non-occupants (810), with an average of one person dying in a drunk driving fatality every 51 minutes.