NHTSA Roadside Survey Shows Drunk Driving Decrease

By Rachel Stockton

There’s good news on American roadways; local and national campaigns to counter drunk driving for the last several decades have made a positive difference. The percentage of drunk drivers on any given weeknight is 2.2 percent, or 1 in 50, compared to 7.5% of drivers over the legal limit in 1973.

The newest statistics are the result of a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conducted in 2007. Drivers were randomly chosen in 300 selected locations; interviewers approached their vehicles and asked to provide a breath test, blood sample, or oral sample. To make drivers more amenable to the idea, $10 was offered to those donating saliva, and $50 went to those who allowed a blood sample to be taken.

Since the purpose of the study was not to arrest drunk drivers on the spot, the interviewers conducting the study were not police officers. If they pulled over someone who was clearly a danger on the road, they arranged for them to be picked up by a friend or relative.

As was expected, weekend warriors drove the alcohol percentages up, especially during the hours from 1:00-3:00 a.m, when 4.8% of drivers, or 1 in 20, are impaired.

One of the most influential forces in the campaign to get drunk drivers off the road has been Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Their aggressive push to educate the public on the dangers of driving drunk changed the public’s perception of the problem as a whole. By the turn of the new millennium, drunk driving statistics had been reduced to what MADD refers to as “a hard core of alcoholics who do not respond to public appeal.”

On the organization’s website, National President Laura Dean-Mooney praised law enforcement for the newly announced 71% reduction in drunk driving: “Law enforcement leadership deserves credit for this remarkable progress,” she states.