Drunk Driving by Gender

A study released in August 2010 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that over the past year, one out of five drivers age 16 and over in the United States had driven a motor vehicle within two hours of drinking alcohol. About two-thirds of those drivers had done so in the past 30 days. The results of this study were used to estimate that 17.2 million drivers, or 8.2 percent of all drivers, had driven one or more times in the past year when they thought they were over the legal limit defining drunk driving. In addition, more than four out of five people (81 percent) saw drinking and driving by others as a major threat to their personal safety. The survey was conducted from September to December 2008.A NHTSA study shows an increasing trend among women driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). NHTSA found that from 2007 to 2008 the number of impaired women drivers involved in fatal crashes increased in 10 states and remained flat in five states, despite an overall decline of 9 percent in all drunk driver crashes during the same period. The study confirms FBI statistics showing that arrests for women driving under the influence increased by nearly 30 percent over the 10-year period from 1998 to 2007. Over that same decade, DUI arrests for men decreased by 7.5 percent, although the total number of men arrested during the period outstripped women by about four to one.