Safe Transportation Research & Education Center

While alcohol-impaired driving fatalities have fallen significantly in the last three decades, NHTSA reports that alcohol-impaired driving still comprises a large percentage of traffic injuries and fatalities. On average in 2018, one person died from an alcohol impaired driving crash every 50 minutes. There was a decrease in the number of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities and rate per 100 million VMT in the United States between 2017 and 2018. Analyses from SWITRS presented in this program area refer to alcohol involvement and include fatalities and serious injuries where law enforcement reported a driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist to have been drinking. Crashes in the program area are defined as one where one or more drivers, pedestrians, or bicyclists is alcohol-impaired or had been drinking (alcohol-involved) depending on which data set is used.