One out of every three drivers in the US will be involved in a alcohol related driving accident during their lifetime.
Traffic fatalities in alcohol-related crashes fell by 2.4 percent, from 17,105 in 2003 to 16,694 in 2004. Although this is definitely an improvement, it is still a lot of dead fellow citizens. To put this in perspective, it is equivalent to a fully loaded Boeing 747 crashing, and leaving no survivors, every nine days all year long - over 39 airplanes in total.
The 16,694 fatalities in alcohol-related crashes during 2004 represent an average of one alcohol-related fatality every 31 minutes.
NHTSA estimates that alcohol was involved in 39 percent of fatal crashes and in 7 percent of all crashes in 2004.
In 2004, 21 percent of the children age 14 and younger who were killed in motor vehicle crashes were killed in alcohol-related crashes.
An estimated 248,000 people were injured in crashes where police reported that alcohol was present - an average of one person injured approximately every 2 minutes.