National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month -- December 1999
Persons who drive while impaired by alcohol or other drugs are a public health hazard to themselves and others. During 1998, alcohol-related motor-vehicle crashes resulted in 15,935 deaths and approximately 305,000 injuries in the United States (1). During 1988-1998, the proportion of all traffic fatalities that were alcohol-related declined steadily, from 50% to 38% (1). During the same period, the rate of alcohol related motor vehicle deaths decreased 39%, from 9.7 to 5.9 per 100,000 persons (1,2). One of the national health objectives for 2000 is to reduce alcohol related motor vehicle deaths to no more than 5.5 per 100,000 persons (objective 9.23) (3). The Healthy People 2010: Health Objectives for the Nation will call for further reductions in alcohol-related motor vehicle deaths (4).
December has been designated National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month by the National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month Coalition, a nationwide public/private sector coalition for the prevention of crashes related to impaired driving. Additional information about National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month is available from the Impaired Driving Division, Office of Traffic Injury Control Programs (NTS-11), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, US Department of Transportation, 400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590; telephone (202) 366-9588; or World-Wide Web site http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/outreach/safesobr/.*
References
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Traffic safety facts 1998: a compilation of motor vehicle crash data for the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the General Estimates System. Washington, DC: US Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, Research, and Development, 1999. Report no. DOT HS 808 983.
National Center for Health Statistics. Healthy people 2000 review, 1995-96. Hyattsville, Maryland: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, 1996.
Office of Public Health and Science. Healthy people 2010 objectives: draft for public comment. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1998.
* References to sites of non-CDC organizations on the Internet are provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content of pages found at these sites.
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