In the study presented in this scientific poster, it is stated that in the United States state-level estimates of impaired driving costs, and sometimes incidence, have not previously been available, nor have cost savings estimates for interventions. To address this need, a series of fact sheets has been developed and are currently available on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA 's) website. The fact sheets provide estimates for each state of: (1) the incidence of impaired driving, including by blood alcohol concentration (BAC); (2) the costs of alcohol-related crashes, including per alcohol-related injury, per mile driven, per drink, and impacts on auto insurance rates; and (3) the cost savings of different impaired driving countermeasures, including enforcement of laws against serving intoxicated patrons, adrninistrative license revocation, .08 BAC laws, graduated licensing, ignition interlocks, sobriety checkpoint programmes, and primary seat belt laws. It is also described on which methods these data and the results are based. The results show that Arizona, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon, and West Virginia have the highest impaired driving costs per capita. Alaska, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, and South Carolina have the lowest. California, which has extensive drunk driving laws, is the only Western state with below-median per capita costs. Differences between states may reflect variations in reporting to police raher than in crash frequency and cost.
Abstract