South Carolina Is The 7th Most Dangerous State For Drunk Driving

Drunk driving is a hazard in all 50 states.  Alcohol is a factor in one third of fatal accidents nationwide when you are considering data from the entire year.  When you only include data from the holiday season, beginning a few days before Thanksgiving and ending after New Year’s Day, alcohol contributes to two out of every five traffic fatalities.  Laws against drunk driving have helped to reduce traffic fatalities; the rate of DUI fatalities permanently declined after the 1980s, when states adopted laws criminalizing driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI).  Another reason that driving became safer in the 1980s is that seat belts became standard in cars; because of this, people involved in collisions were more likely to survive, regardless of the cause of the accident.  The number of DUI fatalities per capita varies from one state to another, but South Carolina consistently ranks in the top ten.  If you have been injured in an alcohol-related accident, contact a Columbia car accident lawyer.

South Carolina Once Again Ranks in the Top Ten for DUI Dangers

Forbes Advisor has recently published its rankings of the states with the highest and lowest rates of DUI.  It measured the number of DUI arrests, alcohol-related accidents, and DUI fatalities per 100,000 residents instead of raw numbers, because relying on the raw numbers would have meant that highly populous states would always appear to be the most dangerous.  It based its rankings on the following criteria:

• Drunk drivers who caused fatal collisions (including single-vehicle and multi-vehicle collisions) per 100,000 licensed drivers
• DUI-related arrests per 100,000 licensed drivers
• DUI-related fatalities (including drunk and sober drivers and passengers in vehicles involved in DUI-related accidents who died from injuries sustained in the accident) per 100,000 residents

Additional criteria involved the age of the drunk drivers, with drunk drivers below the age of 21 constituting a separate category.  The study also categorized alcohol-related crashes by the driver’s blood alcohol content (BAC).  In South Carolina, as in other states, you can be convicted of DUI if your BAC is at least 0.08 percent, but some alcohol-related traffic fatalities involve drivers whose BAC was between 0.01 and 0.07 percent.

This year, South Carolina ranked seventh highest by rate of DUI fatalities.  This means the DUI rate has fallen since 2018, when South Carolina ranked third.  Maine and South Carolina are the only two states in this year’s top ten that are east of the Mississippi River.  New Jersey and Utah are the states with the lowest DUI fatality rates, but the District of Columbia has the lowest DUI fatality rate of all.

Let Us Help You Today

The personal injury lawyers at the Stanley Law Group can help you recover compensation if you were involved in a car accident where the driver was under the influence of alcohol, even if the driver’s BAC was slightly below the legal limit.  Contact The Stanley Law Group in Columbia, South Carolina or call (803)799-4700 for a free initial consultation.

Source:

forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/worst-states-for-drunk-driving/