Fatalities from drunk driving accidents are unfortunately common
Drunk driving is a preventable evil that claims lives all across the country. Pennsylvanians carry the heavy burdens of suffering from these tragic traffic incidents as hundreds of individuals die on area roads each year due to the reckless conduct of intoxicated motorists. This post will discuss several sobering statistics about drunk driving in the state and the dangerous prevalence of drunk drivers on Pennsylvania roads.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4,663 people died in drunk driving vehicle accidents in Pennsylvania between 2003 and 2012. This works out to more than 460 people dying from drunk driving accidents each of the ten years in this figure, which is an average of more than one person every single day for ten straight years.
Pennsylvanians under the age of 35 succumb to drunk driving accident injuries slightly more than the national average, with an average of 1.4 people per 100,000 under 20 years of age dying in 2012 and 7.2 people per 100,000 between the ages of 21 and 34 dying in 2012. The national averages for these demographics are 1.3 and 6.7 per 100,000 respectively.
Any number of deaths per year from drunk driving crashes is too many, and every year too many individuals must bury their loved ones and find ways of moving their lives forward after losing people they loved to alcohol-related vehicle crashes. Drunk driving accidents are preventable through common sense but too often drivers make poor decisions that put others in harm’s way. When a life is lost in a drunk driving accident the victim’s loved ones may have legal options for securing their damages through wrongful death and other personal injury-based claims.