 |
Alcohol Involvement in Fatal Motor-Vehicle Crashes --
United States, 1992-1993
The following figure Figure_1 compares alcohol involvement
in fatal motor-vehicle crashes for 1992 and 1993 in the United
States.
A fatal crash is considered alcohol-related by the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) if either a driver or
nonoccupant (e.g., pedestrian) had a blood alcohol concentration
(BAC) of greater than or equal to 0.01 g/dL in a police-reported
traffic crash. Because BACs are not available for all persons in
fatal crashes, NHTSA estimates the number of alcohol-related
traffic fatalities based on a discriminant analysis (1) of
information from all crashes for which driver or nonoccupant BAC
data are available.
The number of alcohol-involved fatalities decreased from 1992
to 1993 for most age groups. For BACs of 0.01 g/dL-0.09 g/dL, the
overall decrease in alcohol-involved fatalities was 4%; at greater
than or equal to 0.10 g/dL, the legal limit of intoxication in most
states, the number of crash fatalities decreased 2%. The increase
in fatalities for the nonalcohol-involved crashes probably resulted
from a variety of factors, including an increase in the number and
changes in the type of vehicle miles traveled (2).
References
Klein TM. A method of estimating posterior BAC distributions for
persons involved in fatal traffic accidents: final report.
Washington, DC: US Department of Transportation, National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration, 1986; report no. DOT-HS-807-094.
Wagenaar AC, Streff FM. Macroeconomic conditions and
alcohol-impaired driving. J Stud Alcohol 1989;50:217-25.
Figure_1
Return to top.
Figure_1
Return to top.
Disclaimer
All MMWR HTML versions of articles are electronic conversions from ASCII text into HTML. This conversion may have resulted in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users should not rely on this HTML document, but are referred to the electronic PDF version and/or the original MMWR paper copy for the official text, figures, and tables. An original paper copy of this issue can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, DC 20402-9371; telephone: (202) 512-1800. Contact GPO for current prices. **Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to mmwrq@cdc.gov.Page converted: 09/19/98
|
|
