Drunk Driving Statistics 2024

In 2022, someone died in a drunk driving accident every 39 minutes. That’s over 13,000 people per year, even though it was a decrease from the prior year. Needless to say, it’s an important topic that needs to be tracked. Comparing historical drunk driving statistics to current statistics helps assess the efficacy of prevention methods implemented over the years.

In this article, we’ll break down the statistics to better understand drunk driving deaths in the U.S., which states have the most drunk driving incidents, and the economic and societal costs of drunk driving. Let’s dive in.

Key Statistics

Drunk driving fatalities more commonly occur at night, with nearly 9,700 nighttime driving under the influence (DUI) deaths versus about 3,100 daytime DUI fatalities in 2022.
Young adults ages 21 to 24 have the highest DUI fatality rate, while people between 25 and 34 years old have recorded the highest number of fatal accidents involving intoxicated drivers.
Men were involved in 79.5 percent of drunk driving fatalities. Driving under the influence of alcohol has caused 25 percent of all child fatalities in vehicular crashes.
Delaware had the highest increase (75 percent) in DUI fatalities between 2018 and 2022, while Alaska recorded the steepest decline (-31 percent) during the same period.
The economic cost of DUI and drunk driving crashes was $58 billion in 2019.

Drunk Driving Deaths in the United States

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) maintains records on drunk driving incidents in the U.S., but they’re not easy to go through. There’s no consistency in the reports. In the 2019 report, for instance, Table 3 compares 2019 data to 2010, whereas the 2022 report’s Table 3 compares 2022 to 2021. We needed to meticulously go through the reports to pull out more accurate information.

We’ll start with a breakdown of the number of alcohol-related fatal accidents and the percentage of all vehicular fatalities by year.

Year	Number of alcohol-related fatal accidents	Percentage of all fatalities
2022	13,524	32%
2021	13,384	31%
2020	11,654	30%
2019	10,142	28%
2018	10,511	29%

While reading through the reports, we saw how many more alcohol-impaired drivers were involved in fatal accidents at night than during the daytime. That makes sense, considering more people drink at night. The difference was stark. In 2022, there were over three times as many nighttime drunk driving fatalities as there were daytime fatalities involving alcohol.

Here’s a quick look at the numbers.

	Daytime	Nighttime
Total drivers	29,780 fatalities	29,928 fatalities
Drunk drivers	3,146 fatalities	9,679 fatalities
Sober drivers	26,634 fatalities	20,249 fatalities

The NHTSA didn’t show the sober driver fatalities. We needed to calculate that. It surprised us that there were more sober fatalities during the daytime than at nighttime. One possible explanation is that more driving happens during the day, but that makes the nighttime drunk driving fatality numbers look even scarier compared to the sober driver numbers.

We also looked at the other fatalities of drunk driving, beyond the driver. Here’s a breakdown of the number of fatalities and percentage of fatalities they represent for the driver, passengers, occupants of other vehicles, and non-vehicular occupants.

Role	Number	Percent
Alcohol-impaired driver	8,012	59%
Passengers riding with alcohol-impaired driver	1,684	12%
Subtotal	9,696	72%
Occupants of other vehicles	2,193	16%
Nonoccupants (pedestrians, cyclists, etc.)	1,635	12%
Total	13,524	100%

As you can see, alcohol-impaired drivers account for the majority of drunk driving fatalities, but innocent bystanders and road users can be victims of drunk driving incidents too. Combined, occupants of other vehicles driven by someone sober and nonoccupants such as pedestrians and cyclists account for 28 percent of deaths in DUI incidents.

Drunk Driving Deaths by Demographic

We went through the demographic data to understand which age groups are most affected by alcohol-related fatalities, gender breakdowns, and vehicle types. Here’s an overview:

People between the ages of 21 and 24 had the highest rate of fatalities with an intoxicated driver, at 29 percent. That’s one aspect we cover in our guide to family highway safety.
The highest number of fatal accidents with intoxicated drivers in any age group were between 25 and 34 years old (3,485).
Men were involved in more fatal accidents with intoxicated drivers, accounting for 9,914 deaths compared to 2,562 deaths for women.
Passenger cars and pickup trucks are the most likely to be involved in an alcohol-related fatal accident, with 25 percent of fatal accidents for both groups having drunk drivers.
Motor vehicle traffic crashes with impaired drivers account for 25 percent of child fatalities in crashes.

>> Learn More: Can Security Cameras See Inside Cars?

State Drunk Driving Statistics

To figure out which states were worst for drunk driving, we looked at the states with the highest percentage of motor vehicle fatalities that involved one or more intoxicated drivers and the states with the most DUI arrests per capita.

Here are the five states with the highest percentage of fatal accidents involving an intoxicated driver:

Rhode Island: 43 percent (22 fatalities)
South Carolina: 43 percent (474 fatalities)
Texas: 42 percent (1,869 fatalities)
District of Columbia: 39 percent (12 fatalities)
Oregon: 39 percent (232 fatalities)

Rhode Island has the highest percentage, but its raw total is 22 fatalities. Still, it tends to rank high year after year. South Carolina and Texas remain in the top five more frequently, with higher raw numbers. Texas had the highest number of fatalities.

We wanted to provide some context for these numbers by year, so we looked at how each state changed between 2021 and 2022 and between 2018 and 2022. Here’s what we found:

Delaware had the biggest increase in fatalities between 2021 and 2022 and between 2018 and 2022, at 44 percent and 75 percent, respectively. Take a closer look at Delaware in our report on the safest and most dangerous cities in Delaware.
Vermont’s rate of change in fatalities went down. The state saw an increase of 73 percent between 2018 and 2022 and an increase of 13 percent between 2021 and 2022. We show how those changes impact communities in our report on the safest and most dangerous cities in Vermont.
Montana has consistently brought down its fatalities, with a 31 percent decrease between 2021 and 2022 and a 10 percent decrease between 2018 and 2022. We made a report on the safest and most dangerous cities in Montana that breaks it down further.

Alaska has had the biggest change since 2018, with a 31 percent decrease as of 2022. That’s more than twice as big of a decrease as the second highest, which is Wisconsin at 14 percent.

Here are the five states with the highest rate of DUI arrests, as a portion of the state’s total arrests.

Pennsylvania: 19 percent (21,589 arrests)
Vermont: 18 percent (2,190 arrests)
Minnesota: 17.4 percent (20,415 arrests)
Washington: 16.9 percent (22,075 arrests)
Wyoming: 15.5 percent (2,207 arrests)

Interestingly, the two states with the highest number of DUI arrests were not in the top five in percentage of arrests. California had the highest number of DUI arrests, with just over 96,000. Washington was third in the number of arrests, and Pennsylvania was fourth.

Now that we covered the highlights, here’s the full breakdown of each state’s fatal accidents with a driver under the influence, and DUI arrests.

	Fatalities	% of fatal accidents	DUI arrests	% of all arrests
Alabama	281	28%	6,189	5.1%
Alaska	20	24%	3,195	15.1%
Arizona	450	35%	15,406	9.3%
Arkansas	153	24%	5,947	5.9%
California	1,479	33%	96,048	12.9%
Colorado	260	34%	15,698	9.9%
Connecticut	127	35%	6,177	8.4%
Delaware	49	30%	309	1.2%
District of Columbia	12	39%	577	3.5%
Florida	940	27%	15,107	5.3%
Georgia	507	28%	18,566	10.4%
Hawaii	37	31%	2,623	10.5%
Idaho	69	32%	7,544	14.7%
Illinois	471	37%	13,534	11.1%
Indiana	274	29%	12,207	11.4%
Iowa	116	34%	8,197	12.4%
Kansas	109	27%	7,289	11.2%
Kentucky	176	24%	10,355	6.3%
Louisiana	267	29%	2,749	2.8%
Maine	62	34%	4,437	14.6%
Maryland	207	37%	8,804	11.3%
Massachusetts	123	28%	7,591	9.1%
Michigan	305	27%	20,952	13%
Minnesota	130	29%	20,415	17.4%
Mississippi	168	24%	6,915	15.1%
Missouri	290	27%	17,295	12.3%
Montana	71	34%	3,811	14.1%
Nebraska	67	28%	4,306	11.6%
Nevada	140	34%	11,260	10.6%
New Hampshire	52	36%	3,435	9.6%
New Jersey	177	26%	11,549	10.5%
New Mexico	152	33%	5,131	11.5%
New York	371	32%	19,475	13.1%
North Carolina	460	28%	13,377	6%
North Dakota	34	34%	4,391	14.6%
Ohio	471	37%	11,387	7.3%
Oklahoma	186	26%	8,566	10.8%
Oregon	232	39%	11,961	12.4%
Pennsylvania	338	29%	21,589	19%
Rhode Island	22	43%	2,656	12%
South Carolina	474	43%	10,901	7.9%
South Dakota	44	32%	5,618	12.9%
Tennessee	364	28%	17,436	7%
Texas	1,869	42%	58,260	10.6%
Utah	71	22%	7,912	9%
Vermont	26	34%	2,190	18.1%
Virginia	298	30%	17,011	8.8%
Washington	256	35%	22,075	16.9%
West Virginia	60	23%	1,629	7.7%
Wisconsin	171	29%	19,791	10.9%
Wyoming	40	30%	2,207	15.5%

The Cost of Drunk Driving

We’ll look at the cost of drunk driving from a societal perspective and an individual perspective. First, let’s tackle the societal aspect.

A 2019 study found that the total economic cost of drunk driving accidents was $58 billion — over $71 billion in 2024, accounting for inflation. That includes property damage, medical costs, and productivity loss due to injury.

There are more societal costs to drunk driving than those, however, and the $58 billion figure doesn’t account for quality-of-life losses due to injuries or fatalities. Thankfully, the study tackled that question, and it estimated the total costs at $296 billion. That’s $364 billion in 2024, adjusting for inflation.

With such high costs to our economy and society, the penalties for driving under the influence are understandably harsh. The specific costs vary by state and the severity of the incident, but here’s the average cost for someone who gets arrested for a DUI.

	Cost
Bail bonds	$500 to over $3,500 for severe offenses
Towing	$250 to $750
Attorney costs	$2,500 to $10,000
Court fines	$150 to $10,000
Insurance premiums	$2,000 to $5,000
Alcohol treatment courses	$150 to $300
Updated license applications	$100 to $200
Ignition interlock device	$60 to $125 per month with about a $100 installation fee
Total	$5,750 to $29,850

The cost of a DUI depends heavily on the number of repeat offenses; the lower numbers in the table above are for first-time offenders. All states except New Hampshire, North Dakota, Virginia, and Wisconsin have minimum jail sentences for the first offense. Sentences range from 24 hours to several years.

Final Thoughts

Drunk driving first became a public health issue in the 1980s, and it’s still an issue today. We’ve made progress though. The statistics we’ve found and developed show the progress. In some states and years, there are steps back, but the roads are becoming safer when looking at the bigger picture.

Part of the progress comes from cars being safer, but it also comes from awareness of the dangers. We hope our drunk driving statistics can help spread that awareness with accurate information that portrays the dangers, harms, and costs of driving under the influence.