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[Study] Fatal Drunk Driving Crashes Are On The Rise In Washington

Drunk Driving Crash Study

Mixing alcohol and motor vehicles is one of the most dangerous things you can do. Studies show that the risk of a fatal car crash starts to increase significantly even before you reach a blood alcohol content of 0.08%, which is the legal limit in every U.S. state except Utah. In fact, your reaction time while driving can be impacted by a BAC as low as 0.02%.

And younger drivers — particularly young men — are especially likely to be the ones involved in alcohol-related crashes.

The results are chilling: A person dies every 39 minutes in a car crash involving a drunk driver, according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, leading to thousands of preventable deaths every year.

To try to quantify just how much alcohol increases the danger of car crashes, we used records from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database. We looked into more than 7,000 fatal crashes involving alcohol across the country in 2022, comparing them to non-alcohol-related crashes and crashes in previous years to find the things that set them apart.

KEY FINDINGS

  • Fatal drunk driving crashes fell by 5% nationwide from 2021 to 2022 — but increased by 49% in Washington state, the fourth-largest increase of any state.
  • King County is home to more fatal drunk-driving crashes than anywhere else in Washington, with 24 such crashes in 2022 — up 50% from 2021.
  • Nearly 60% of fatal crashes that involve alcohol happen between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m., compared to just under 30% of fatal crashes not related to alcohol.

Drunk driving crashes are down nationwide — but up in Washington.

The FARS data shows some positive developments. Overall, fatal drunk driving crashes dropped to 7,405, a 5% decrease year over year. However, the pattern is much less consistent from state to state.

In Washington, there were 128 fatal crashes in 2022 involving drivers who had been drinking. That’s a 49% year-over-year increase, catapulting the state from #29 in fatal drunk driving crashes in 2021 to #19 in 2022.

And it’s the fourth largest increase by percentage, behind only Georgia — where alcohol-related fatal crashes more than doubled — Oregon, and New Hampshire. Arkansas and Oklahoma were the only states where fatal drunk driving crashes fell by at least 50% year over year.

The State of the States: Changes in Alcohol-Related Fatal Crashes

State Fatal crashes with alcohol, 2021 Fatal crashes with alcohol, 2022 Change (%)
Georgia 101 215 113%
Oregon 50 85 70%
New Hampshire 14 21 50%
Washington 86 128 49%
Maine 29 43 48%
Delaware 27 38 41%
New Mexico 57 74 30%
West Virginia 38 48 26%
Wyoming 30 37 23%
Maryland 85 102 20%
North Dakota 23 27 17%
Colorado 179 198 11%
Minnesota 88 97 10%
Pennsylvania 182 194 7%
Vermont 24 25 4%
Alabama 118 120 2%
California 918 938 2%
Texas 922 930 1%
Massachusetts 55 55 0%
Mississippi 116 116 0%
Indiana 147 145 -1%
New Jersey 149 148 -1%
Tennessee 265 262 -1%
Missouri 175 172 -2%
South Carolina 299 293 -2%
Virginia 125 122 -2%
Hawaii 35 34 -3%
Utah 52 50 -4%
Illinois 131 123 -6%
Nebraska 47 44 -6%
Arizona 167 154 -8%
Kansas 92 85 -8%
Michigan 300 275 -8%
Louisiana 225 201 -11%
District of Columbia 8 7 -13%
Iowa 83 72 -13%
Idaho 70 60 -14%
New York 153 131 -14%
Nevada 81 69 -15%
Kentucky 142 119 -16%
Alaska 18 15 -17%
Wisconsin 163 132 -19%
Florida 619 490 -21%
Ohio 222 168 -24%
North Carolina 359 258 -28%
Connecticut 68 46 -32%
Montana 99 67 -32%
South Dakota 47 29 -38%
Rhode Island 13 7 -46%
Oklahoma 115 56 -51%
Arkansas 174 80 -54%

The Seattle area is the state’s biggest hotspot for drunk driving crashes.

King County tied for the most fatal drunk driving crashes in the state in 2021, with 16. Unfortunately, that number spiked by 50% to 24 fatal crashes in 2022, still the most in Washington.

Also troubling: Neighboring Snohomish County reported 14 fatal crashes involving alcohol in 2022 after having just one such crash in 2021. If you suspect somebody driving under the influence, keep your distance and call 911 to report the drunk driver.

Most drunk driving crashes happen overnight.

Of the fatal crashes that do not involve alcohol, the most common window of time is from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., when evening commutes typically take place; roughly 1 in 4 fatal crashes happens during that period.

But when you add alcohol to the mix, the balance shifts much more heavily to night driving. Both nationwide and in Washington, 30% of fatal crashes involving alcohol happen between 8 p.m. and midnight, followed closely by the window from midnight to 4 a.m.

And in King County, over 40% of fatal drunk driving crashes happen between midnight and 4 a.m. (the smaller sample size when looking at a single county can cause larger variance).

Data sources and methodology

Data for this analysis comes from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a database of all fatal U.S. motor vehicle crashes maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Information on fatal crashes from 2022, the most recent year available, was released in April 2024.

We used fields in the FARS data tables to identify fatal crashes in which drunk driving was a factor and compared the number and characteristics of those crashes to previous years at the national, state, and county level.

Feel free to use data from this analysis elsewhere, but if you do, please link back to this page and credit Malcolm Law for attribution purposes.