Last Updated on May 29, 2013 by

A new intervention and prevention campaign by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) could mean one drink is too many for safe driving limits.

The NTSB recently released Reaching Zero: Actions to Eliminate Alcohol-Impaired Driving, a safety report that outlines the board’s findings from a year-long effort to prevent substance and alcohol impaired driving. According to the report, the legal limit of .08 in most states in the US and Canada is the highest in the world. Most countries including South American and European countries have a limit of .05 or lower. The board also reported that about 1 person is killed every hour by an impaired driver. The goal of the Reaching Zero initiative is to lower the number of DWI deaths, accidents and injuries.

Highlights From The National Transportation Safety Board’s Reach Zero Safety Report

• Laboratory studies have shown that driving-related performance is degraded at BAC levels as low as 0.01, and epidemiological studies employing crash data have shown significantly elevated crash risk at BAC levels near 0.05. Lowering per se BAC limits has been associated with reductions in impaired driving crashes and fatalities.
• Alcohol-impaired driving accounts for approximately one-third of all US highway fatalities. Thanks to the increase in awareness campaigns and stricter laws, this number has gradually decreased since 1982, and the percentage of highway fatalities resulting from alcohol-involved crashes is down from 48 percent in 1982 to about 31 percent today.
• Although the number of fatalities has decreased, the number of injuries caused by DWIs are still high. In 2011 alone, more than 173,000 people received nonfatal injuries in alcohol-involved crashes, including more than 27,000 who received incapacitating injuries.5 The NTSB analysis also found that nearly twice as many people in alcohol-involved crashes are killed or injured (32percent) compared to those in non-alcohol-involved crashes (17 percent).
• According to 2006 crash data, DWI’s cost the public an estimated $129.7 billion, comprising $66.4 billion in monetary costs and $63.3 billion in quality-of-life losses (Zaloshnja and Miller 2009, 141–53).
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimated that 1.2 million driving while intoxicated (DWI)10 arrests took place in 2011 (FBI 2013). It has been estimated that only 1 of 80 impaired driving trips results in the driver’s being arrested (Ferguson 2012, 427–41).
• Effective October 2012, The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) awards grants to states that adopt interlock laws, open container enforcement, minimum penalties for repeat offenders and other effective programs to reduce driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs.
• Based on arrest data, as well as drivers’ self-reports of driving after drinking, it has been estimated that alcohol-impaired drivers make an average of 80 impaired driving trips before being detected and arrested (Ferguson 2012, 427–41).
• In 2011, NHTSA estimated that drivers in fatal crashes with BACs of 0.08 or higher were seven times more likely to have a prior DWI conviction than those with no alcohol in their systems.

A Message For Drivers

NTSB Chairman stated: “Alcohol-impaired crashes are not accidents, they are crimes. They can – and should – be prevented.”

If states adopt the lower BAC rates, even one drink might be too much. As always, we encourage you to think before you drink and drive.