Washington Impaired Driving Statistics
- Impairment due to drug or alcohol
consumption is the number one driver factor
contributing to fatal crashes in Washington.
Statistics show drugs or alcohol were
involved in 29% of traffic fatalities
between 1997 and 2006. The Washington
Traffic Safety Commission tracks information
about impaired-driver-involved (IDI)
fatalities in order to identify trends and
suggest possible solutions.
- The impaired-driver-involved fatality
rate has increased by 15.6% between 1997 and
2006. When IDI fatalities are
separated into alcohol-involved and
drug-involved collisions, however, it
becomes clear that this increase is due to a
180% increase in the drug-involved fatality
rate. The number of traffic deaths
involving a driver with a positive drug test
increased by 213% over that decade.
Alcohol-involved fatalities are actually
trending downwards, with a decrease of 15.4%
in the rate of drinking-driver-involved
fatalities between 1997 and 2006. The
drinking-driver-involved fatality rate has
been reduced sharply since 1980, but
recently the downward trend has slowed.
From 1999 to 2006, the fatality rate
declined just 4%.
- Impaired-driver-involved fatalities are
more likely to involve a single vehicle (64%
of IDI collisions, versus 59% of all fatal
collisions). More than two-thirds of
IDI crashes occur at night, between 6 p.m.
and 6 a.m. Fatalities were most frequent
between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., with 30.3% of
all fatalities. Due to this, the
impaired-driver-involved fatality rate per
100 million vehicle-miles-traveled is
significantly higher during night hours.
From 1997 to 2006, the daytime fatality rate
was .18, a fraction of the nighttime rate of
1.69.
- Younger drivers are overrepresented
among those involved in IDI fatalities.
Statistically, drivers aged 25 and under
involved in fatal crashes were one-third
more likely to be impaired than drivers 26+
in fatal crashes recorded between 1997 and
2006. Approximately 35% of young
drivers involved in fatal crashes were
impaired, compared to around 26% of 26+
drivers. Young drivers also made up
the largest percentage of fatalities.
Persons aged 21-30 made up 29.8% of traffic
fatalities between 1997 and 2006, although
they made up just 13.6% of the population of
Washington.
- Similarly to overall fatalities, the
majority of impaired-driver-involved
fatalities (63.4%) occurred on rural roads
between 1997 and 2006. Since only a
fraction of vehicle-miles-traveled occurred
on rural roads during this time period, the
rural road fatality rate per 100 million
miles was 1.11, compared to a rate of 0.28
in urban areas. The highest numbers of
fatalities occurred on rural county roads
and highways. Contrary to intuition,
interstates had the lowest fatality rate, at
0.17 deaths per 100 million miles.
- Males consistently make up the majority
of IDI fatalities, comprising 77.2% between
1997 and 2006. The difference is
particularly pronounced in younger age
groups. Of IDI fatalities aged 21-30,
85.3% were male.
- Native Americans have the highest
impaired-driver-involved fatality rate per
100,000 population by a wide margin – the
Native American rate of 16.03 is almost four
times the white rate of 4.41 and the black
rate of 4.82. The Hispanic population
had the second highest fatality rate at 6.92
deaths per 100,000 people.
- More impaired-driver-involved fatalities
occur during the summer months than at any
other time of the year. From
1997-2006, 31.5% of IDI fatalities occurred
between July and September. On
average, July experienced the highest number
of casualties.
Source:
Traffic Research and Data Center
Washington Traffic Safety Commission
http://www.wtsc.wa.gov/research/collisiondata.php
