![The rate of alcohol-impaired driving deaths in Santa Rosa County fluctuates every couple years; in 2008 the rate of driving deaths with alcohol involvement was 33 percent, in 2010 the rate was 48 percent, in 2012 the rate was 32 percent, in 2015 the rate was 47 percent, and in 2016 the rate was 39 percent. [Pixabay.com]](http://127.0.0.1/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ghows-DA-4fde5992-0574-063e-e053-0100007f06ed-e362a5d4.jpeg)
Editor’s Note: This continues our series on health and socioeconomic issues affecting Santa Rosa County.
Santa Rosa ranks No. 33 out of 67 Florida counties for health behaviors, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute’s latest County Health Rankings.
The rate of alcohol-impaired driving deaths in Santa Rosa County regularly fluctuates every couple years; in 2008 the rate of driving deaths with alcohol involvement was 33 percent, in 2010 the rate was 48 percent, in 2012 the rate was 32 percent, in 2015 the rate was 47 percent, and in 2016 the rate was 39 percent.
The rate in Florida and the United States as a whole has been trending downward in recent years.
HARDCORE OFFENDERS
Alcohol-impaired driving is one of America’s most-often-committed and deadliest crimes, according to the National Center for DWI Courts, and accounts for approximately one-third of all crash fatalities in the United States.
In 2009, of the 10,839 alcohol-impaired fatalities in the U.S., more than 70 percent involved a hardcore offender, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Hardcore offenders are persons with a blood-alcohol concentration of .15 or greater, or with a prior DWI arrest. The estimated cost was $900,000 per fatality.
Repeat DWI offenders are over-represented in fatal crashes and have a greater relative risk to kill another person, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
During an average weekend night, about 1 percent of drivers have BACs of .15 or greater and about two-thirds of fatally injured drinking drivers have BACs of .15 or greater.
A driver with a .08 BAC in a fatal crash is 8 times more likely to have a prior DWI conviction than a person with no alcohol present. Drivers at .15 BAC and above are at least 20 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than a non-drinking driver.
The NHTSA estimates that half of all drivers arrested and half of those convicted of DWI have BACs of .15 or greater. Hardcore impaired drivers are not impacted by the same general deterrence methods, such as public awareness campaigns, or traditional sanctions such as incarceration.
Hardcore impaired drivers meet the clinical diagnosis of alcohol dependence and abuse. Every state has passed .08 BAC as the illegal level to be able to drive after drinking; however, many people would be impaired before reaching .08.
HOWS IT’S MEASURED
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed self-reported data from the 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey in order to estimate the prevalence, number of episodes, and annual rate of alcohol-impaired driving.
An estimated 4.2 million adults reported at least one alcohol-impaired driving episode in the preceding 30 days, resulting in an estimated 121 million episodes and a national rate of 505 episodes per 1,000 population annually.
Alcohol-impaired driving rates varied by more than four times the amount among states, and were highest in the Midwest U.S. Census region, according to the CDC.
Men accounted for 80 percent of incidences, with young men aged 21–34 years accounting for 32 percent of all incidences.
According to the CDC, 85 percent of alcohol-impaired driving episodes were reported by persons who also reported binge drinking, and the 4 percent of the adult population who reported binge drinking at least four times per month accounted for 61 percent of all alcohol-impaired driving episodes.
APPROACHES
Strategies implemented to reduce alcohol-impaired driving include sobriety checkpoints, enforcement of 0.08 grams per deciliter BAC laws, requiring alcohol ignition interlocks for everyone convicted of driving while intoxicated and increasing alcohol taxes.
According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, although reasons for the deviation in alcohol-impaired driving across the United States are not fully understood, individual-level and state-level factors likely contribute.
Effective prevention strategies have not been adopted by all states; for example, as of February 2015, 12 states prohibited the use of publicized sobriety checkpoints.
Seat belts are about 50 percent effective in preventing driver fatalities in crashes, and seat belt use is higher in states with a primary seat belt law compared with use in states with a secondary law, according to NHTSA.
In their report, those who did not always wear a seat belt had alcohol-impaired driving rates three times higher than those who were always belted; consistent seat belt use was especially low among alcohol-impaired drivers living in states with a secondary seat belt law.
These findings together suggest that fatalities among alcohol-impaired drivers could be substantially reduced if every state had a primary seat belt law.
LOCAL IMPACT
Santa Rosa County was a dry county until 2005, meaning the county government forbade the sale of any kind of alcoholic beverages.
The first large spike in alcohol-impaired driving deaths occurred in 2010. In early 2017, the county started allowing Sunday alcohol sales.
The Community Health Needs Assessment in 2016 shows that alcohol-related motor vehicle traffic crash deaths are part of the unfavorable health factors, performing worse than the state of Florida.
In 2011, the Santa Rosa County Sherriff’s Office posted this data to their Facebook page:
“Alcohol is the No. 1 drug of choice among youth in both Santa Rosa and Escambia Counties. Even though Florida Statutes specify that persons under the age of 21 cannot consume, possess, or sell alcohol our teens and pre-teens are readily doing just that.
“According to the 2010 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, more youths are consuming alcohol than ever before.”
According to the sheriff’s office, Santa Rosa County showed the following data when it comes to underage drinking:
• Alcohol consumption in high school – 67.1 percent
• Regular use of alcohol in high school – 38.2 percent
• Alcohol consumption in middle school- 31.8 percent
• Regular use of alcohol in middle school – 13.3 percent
• Binge drinking in high school – 23 percent
• Binge drinking in middle school – 5.4 percent
The latest alcohol-impaired driving death occurred in March of this year in Pace, when a woman’s car left the roadway and hit a concrete culvert; she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and was under the influence of alcohol, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Denise Manassa, the community representative for both the Community Drug and Alcohol Council and the Northwest Florida Prevention Coalition, said that it’s hard to say what causes these fluctuations because so many factors play into it.
“We can guess. Were there more fairs or festivals going on during the spike? Were [the most accidents] during summer time? It’s looking at comprehensive behavior related to alcohol drinking,” Manassa said.
“Were they out-of-state people? There’s not a clear answer unless you look at all the information related to these [factors].”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Rate of alcohol-related traffic fatalities fluctuates