NEWS RELEASE
MICHIGAN STATE POLICE
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The 2022 impaired driving national enforcement mobilization "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" goes into effect across the country from Aug. 17 to Sept. 5, 2022. One of the deadliest and most often committed - yet preventable - of crimes (impaired driving), has become a serious safety epidemic in our country.
As law enforcement professionals and highway safety advocates, your efforts will help reduce the number of crashes and fatalities due to impaired driving. By increasing State enforcement efforts, raising public awareness through paid, earned, and social media, and maximizing local resources, you indeed can make a difference.
Labor Day Statistics
- Over the Labor Day holiday weekend periods from 2017 to 2021, there were 39 drivers killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes in Michigan. In those crashes, one-thirdof the drivers killed were alcohol-impaired.
- During the 2020 Labor Day holiday period, there were 530 crash fatalities nationwide. Forty-six percent of those fatalities involved drivers who had been drinking (.01+ blood alcohol concentration [BAC]). More than one-third (38 per cent) of the fatalities involved drivers who were drunk (.08+ BAC), and one-fourth (25 per cent) involved drivers who were driving with a BAC almost twice the legal limit (.15+ BAC).
- Among drivers between the ages of 21 and 34 who were killed in crashes over the Labor Day holiday period in 2020 nationwide, 44 per cent of those drivers were drunk, with BACs of .08 or higher.
Sobering Statistics
- In 2021, nearly 45 percent of fatalities on Michigan roadways involved alcohol and/or drugs, according to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
- One person was killed in an alcohol-involved crash every 24 hours and 32 minutes in Michigan in 2021.
- There were 9,557 alcohol-involved crashes (with 357 alcohol-involved fatalities) and 2,999 drug-involved crashes (with 275 drug-involved fatalities) on Michigan roadways in 2021.
- Approximately one-third of all traffic crash fatalities in the United States involve drunk drivers (with BACs at or above .08). In 2020, there were 11,654 people killed in drunk-driving crashes.
- It’s illegal to drive when impaired by alcohol, yet in 2020, one person was killed every 45 minutes in a drunk-driving crash on our nation’s roads.
- Nighttime is a particularly dangerous time to be on the roads: The rate of alcohol impairment among drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2020 was 3.1 times higher at night than during the day.
Use these enforcement materials to help you successfully spread the campaign’s message, Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over, and complement your enforcement campaign. The high-visibility enforcement model has two important purposes:
- Spread the message, and
- Increase enforcement efforts
Research shows that high-visibility enforcement can reduce impaired driving fatalities by as much as 20 per cent. This is why NHTSA has prepared these campaign materials so to maximize participation in this year's high-visibility enforcement mobilization campaign.
Click here to get 2022 enforcement campaign materials. The 2022 Social Media Playbook is now available. Click here to download.
On behalf of the NHTSA team, thanks for your proactive support in impaired driving prevention.
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