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Binge Drinkers Account For Most Alcohol Impaired Driving

Motor-vehicle crashes that are alcohol-related kill approximately 17,000 Americans per year. Injury from these accidents is the leading cause of death among Americans under 34 years of age. Drinking and 
driving is also costly, causing more than $51 billion in related damages in the year 2000. Many policy-makers assume impaired drivers are heavy drinkers or alcohol-dependent. This study looked more closely at the issue, asking: “Who are these alcohol-impaired (AI) individuals who are making American roads so unsafe?”

Researchers analyzed data from the 2006 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. The BRFSS is a state-based cross-sectional telephone survey of US adults for drinking patterns and self-reported alcohol-impaired (AI) driving among U.S. adults 18 years and older conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Drinking was divided into four categories: non-binge/non-heavy, non-binge/heavy, binge/non-heavy, and binge/heavy. (Binge drinking was defined as 5 or more drinks for men or 4 or more drinks for women on one or more occasions in the previous month. Heavy drinking was defined as more than 2 drinks per day for men or more than 1 drink per day for women.)

Binge drinking accounted for more episodes and was more predictive of AI driving than heavy drinking. Approximately 84 percent of AI drivers were binge drinkers, and 88 percent of AI-driving episodes involved binge drinkers. Study authors called for more effective interventions to reduce binge drinking and its negative effects on public health and safety, such as increased taxes, and better enforcement of laws to prevent sales to intoxicated patrons or underage persons.

(Flowers, NT, Naimi, TS, Brewer, RD, Elder, RW, Shults, RA, Jiles, R: Patterns of alcohol consumption and alcohol-impaired driving in the United States. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 32:639-644, 2008)

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