Falls and motor vehicle crashes, which are related to mobility, are the leading causes of injury and injury death in older adults. There are many negative outcomes for older adults if they stop driving or fall, including reductions in their health, social interaction, and the ability to get around. CDC developed the MyMobility planning tool, using available scientific evidence, to help older adults plan for future mobility changes that might increase their risk for motor vehicle crashes and falls. Adult children or caregivers can also use this planning tool to help older parents, relatives, or friends. Each year, millions of people choose to drive while under the influence of alcohol, sometimes with devastating results. Research has identified proven policies that can keep alcohol-impaired drivers off the road and save thousands of lives each year.
There are proven strategies that can help prevent these injuries and deaths. Whether you are a driver, passenger, cyclist, or pedestrian, you can take steps to stay safe on the road. Motor vehicle crashes are the second leading cause of death for U.S. teens.1 Teen motor vehicle crashes are preventable, and proven strategies can improve the safety of young drivers on the road. By wearing seat belts and buckling children into age- and size-appropriate car seats and booster seats, people can reduce the risk of serious injury and death by half. Although most drivers follow these safety measures on every trip, there are still millions who don’t.
Risk factors
It is not known how many people are killed each year in crashes involving drug-impaired drivers because of data limitations.9 Regardless, driving while impaired by any substance is dangerous and illegal. Thanks to dedicated efforts, rates of AID and alcohol-involved fatal crashes have gone down in recent years. Still, impaired driving: get the facts transportation safety injury center alcohol-impaired drivers got behind the wheel about 147 million times in 2018. Learn more about effective interventions for reducing and preventing AID. Almost one in three traffic deaths in the United States involves a driver with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08% or higher. Alcohol-impaired driving laws make it illegal to drive with a BAC at or above a specified level (0.05% or 0.08%, depending on the state).
Sobering Facts: Alcohol-Impaired Driving State Fact Sheets
In the US, front seat belt use was lower than in most other comparison countries. One in 3 crash deaths in the US involved alcohol-impaired driving, and almost 1 in 3 involved speeding. Lower death rates in other high-income countries and a high percentage of risk factors in the US suggest that we can make more progress in reducing crash deaths. Motor vehicle crashes are a public health concern both in the United States and abroad. In the United States, motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death, and kill over 120 people every day.
Who is most at risk?
CDC’s GDL Planning Guide is designed to assist states to assess, develop, and implement actionable plans to strengthen graduated driver licensing practices. Adapted from The ABCs of BACpdf iconexternal icon, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2005, and How to Control Your Drinking, WR Miller and RF Munoz, University of New Mexico, 1982. The Resource Kit offers a variety of strategies aimed at changing or influencing community conditions, standards, institutions, systems and policies.
Order hard copies of MyMobility Plan here via CDC-INFO on Demand for publications. You can customize the MyMobility Plan pdf iconPDF – 4 pages with your organization’s name and address. There is a designated space for you to add contact information only (not logos). A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. The number of drinks listed represents the approximate amount of alcohol that a 160-pound man would need to drink in one hour to reach the listed BAC in each category.
What are the effects of blood alcohol concentration (BAC)?
- Identify strategies to help keep people safe on the road – every day.
- Multi-component interventions combine several programs or policies to prevent alcohol-impaired driving.
- Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death and kill over 100 people every day.
- The good news is that older adults are more likely to have safer driving behaviors than other age groups.
- In the US, front seat belt use was lower than in most other comparison countries.
(July 2016) – Reducing motor vehicle crash deaths was one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century for the US. However, more than 32,000 people are killed and 2 million are injured each year from motor vehicle crashes. In 2013, the US crash death rate was more than twice the average of other high-income countries.
- If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.
- Most states have set the legal BAC limit for driving at 0.08 grams of alcohol per deciliter (g/dL); the limit is 0.05 g/dL in Utah.1 However, impairment starts at lower BAC levels.
- But the risk of being injured or killed in a traffic crash increases as people age.
If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page. Most states have set the legal BAC limit for driving at 0.08 grams of alcohol per deciliter (g/dL); the limit is 0.05 g/dL in Utah.1 However, impairment starts at lower BAC levels. Information on the effects of alcohol on driving at a range of BACs is available here.
CADCA’s Impaired Driving Resource Kit is designed to provide coalitions, law enforcement partners and drug prevention practitioners with strategies to prevent and reduce impaired driving in their communities. Grounded in the field of public health, environmental strategies offer well-accepted prevention approaches that coalitions can use to change the context (or environment) in which impaired driving occurs. Alcohol-impaired driving crashes still account for one-third of all traffic-related deaths in the United States. The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $44 billion. Facts such as these continue to drive efforts in communities around the country to reduce driving under the influence. CADCA, through the support of NHTSA, has developed an Impaired Driving Resource Kit to aid community efforts with the latest research and evidence-based strategies.
What Works: Strategies to Reduce or Prevent Alcohol-Impaired Driving
In fact, it is estimated that 2,549 lives (of people 5 years and older) could have been saved in 2017 alone if all motor vehicle occupants were restrained on every trip. Learn more about effective interventions for improving restraint use. Fact sheets are available for each state and the District of Columbia. They include national and state data on alcohol-impaired driving and alcohol-involved crash deaths, as well as an overview of proven strategies for reducing and preventing alcohol-impaired driving.