Impaired Driving
Motor vehicle crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers kill one person every 45 minutes in the United States. That’s 32 people every day.
We know a lot about the harmful effects of alcohol-impaired driving but less about the burden of drug-impaired driving. Regardless, driving while impaired by any substance is dangerous and illegal.
Thankfully, there are effective measures that can help prevent injuries and deaths from impaired driving.
Driving while impaired by any substance can be deadly. Impaired driving happens when someone operates a vehicle while impaired by substances such as marijuana, illicit drugs, some prescription or over-the-counter medicines, and/or alcohol.
The drug-impaired driving fact sheet [PDF – 2 pages] provides an overview of drug-impaired driving, highlighting strategies that states can use to address drug-impaired driving and identifying actions that could advance understanding of the issue.
Working together, we can keep alcohol-impaired drivers off the road. Fact sheets are available for each state and the District of Columbia. They include national and state data on alcohol-impaired driving and crash deaths involving alcohol-impaired drivers, as well as an overview of proven strategies for reducing and preventing alcohol-impaired driving.
- Alcohol-impaired driving among adults — USA, 2014–2018
- Driving Under the Influence of Marijuana and Illicit Drugs Among Persons Aged ≥16 Years — United States, 2018
- Marijuana and alcohol use among injured drivers evaluated at level I trauma centers in Arizona, 2008–2014
- Mandating Treatment Based on Interlock Performance: Evidence for Effectiveness