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Driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs causes thousands of deaths in the United States each year.
In fact, national statistics show that more than 10,000 people were killed as a direct result of intoxicated driving in 2015 and over 200,000 individuals suffered injuries in DUI-related incidents.
To raise awareness about the dangers of drunk in America, BackroundChecks.org recently published a detailed report called “Best and Worst States for Drunk Driving” that ranks all 50 states with regard to the frequency and severity of drunk driving incidents.
You can see the full DUI report and filter the data here.
Learn more about drunk driving accidents and dram shop liability: https://justiceguardians.com/dram-shop-liability/
Researchers used DUI data from multiple organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the Department of Transportation (DOT).
A combination of factors were taken into consideration when ranking each state including the total number of DUI arrests in a particular state, the total number of DUI-related fatalities in each state and self-reported drunk driving.
Instead of simply ranking the states with the most DUI arrests and DUI-related fatalities as the “worst” states for drunk driving, researchers looked at the rate of DUI incidents in each state relative to the state’s population.
A weighted formula was applied to the data in order to determine the final ranking of each state.
The State of Pennsylvania landed in the middle of the pack at #25 on the list of “best and worst” states for DUI incidents in the United States.
According to the report, there were 44,615 DUI arrests in Pennsylvania in 2015 which equates to a rate of 349 DUI arrests per 100,000 residents.
There were only two other states – Texas and California – that had more DUI arrests than Pennsylvania in 2015.
Although Pennsylvania ranked highly only the list of states with the most DUI arrests in in 2015, PA’s rate of DUI arrests per capita was relatively low compared to most states.
For example, there were only 3,157 DUI arrests in the State of Wyoming in 2015. However, because Wyoming’s population is so small the state had one of the highest rates of DUI arrests per capita.
The report also shows that 364 people were killed in DUI-related traffic fatalities in Pennsylvania in 2015. There were only five other states with more DUI-related traffic fatalities during that year.
Even one death caused by drunk driving is unacceptable and the ultimate goal is to eliminate drunk driving fatalities completely one day. However, deaths caused by drunk driving continue to occur each year and Pennsylvania happened to be a state with a relatively low rate of DUI-related deaths per capita compared to many other states in 2015.
Wyoming, on the other hand, had a total of 56 DUI-related deaths in 2015 making it one of the states with the least DUI-related deaths. However, the State of Wyoming had a rate of 9.56 DUI-related deaths per 100,000 people which was the highest rate in the country.
