In Hawaii, there were 995 drunk driving episodes yearly per 1,000 people – that means nearly one incident for every person in the state.
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For the report, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed people across the United States, asking how many times in the last 30 days they drove after they “had perhaps too much to drink”. For many residents in western Massachusetts these statistics, although alarming, aren’t that surprising.
A new study finds that close to 2 percent of adults – about 4.2 million people – admitted to driving while intoxicated at least once over the prior month.
The research has unveiled that young males having history of binge drinks form to be drunk driver. According to the study, men aged 21 to 34 made up a third of all drunk driving episodes, while men overall made up 80 percent of impaired drivers.
The problem is more serious than it may seem at first glace as the CDC warns that “alcohol-impaired driving crashes have accounted for about one third of all U.S. crash fatalities in the past two decades”. The Midwest fared the worst when it comes to drunk driving, however that is no shock, the group stated, as a result of “individuals dwelling within the Midwest have persistently reported larger alcohol-impaired driving charges than these dwelling in different areas”.
“In 2013, 39 % of school college students reported binge consuming prior to now month”, he stated.
Dr. Krakower informed that binge drinking is a huge problem among college-age kids and young adults, and the main factor “in alcohol-impaired driving”. “Analysis has additionally proven that underage consuming might progress onward to a critical alcohol drawback in adults”. Driving drunk was also shown to be linked to other risky behavior such as binge drinking and inconsistently wearing a seatbelt.
So how can we reduce these numbers? The CDC is pushing for stricter blood alcohol content laws, more sobriety checkpoints and higher taxes on alcohol.
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The study was published August 7 in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
