Even One Drink Can Lead to Injury and Drunk Driving Accidents
Everyone knows that driving while impaired is more likely to lead to an accident. With this in mind, it is not a far leap to recognize that more injuries and fatalities occur due to drunk driving accidents during the holiday season—when more people are presumably on the road after having spent the night drinking. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and reported by BACtrack.com, between 2001 and 2005 an average of 36 fatalities occurred per day on average as a result of an alcohol-related car crash. During the winter holiday season, this number rose to an average of 45 fatalities per day involving an alcohol-impaired driver—and rose to 54 deaths per day over the New Year’s holiday.
These statistics, of course, are staggering. Even if crashes are not fatal, alcohol-impaired crashes are more likely to be severe and thus more likely to result in serious injury as well. According to the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, more than 40 percent of car accident-related injuries occur because of a drunk driver. This statistic also extends to pedestrian-vehicle deaths: 40 percent of all pedestrian deaths that result from a car accident involve a driver who had been drinker. “Even those who drink ‘relatively low levels,’ in other words, less than one drink per day, are at greater risk of getting injured,” according to the American College of Surgeons.
The United States Center for Disease Control corroborates this fact: even just one drink—within the legal driving limit—can impair a person’s ability to operate a motor vehicle. He or she can be charged with DUI even if his or her limit was below the legal limit. If you injure someone in a drunk driving accident, it is a mark that can go onto your record forever.
If you or someone you know has been injured in an accident that involved a drunk driver this holiday season, you are likely eligible for compensation. Do not go through it alone. Contact an experienced New Braunfels personal injury attorney today.
