Florida sees far too many car accidents as it is, but those stemming from drunk driving are among the deadliest. Such collisions are even more likely to occur during the holidays. These are statistics on fatal holiday drunk driving crashes.
Average of fatal accidents during holidays
According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, over 6,000 fatal drunk driving accidents occur during the holidays. The data also shows that the majority of these accidents occur on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
State highways accounted for the majority of fatal drunk driving accidents during holidays. Local roads accounted for the second-highest number of deaths stemming from crashes caused by drunk drivers. County roads made up the third-largest place where these accidents occurred during holidays.
Number of fatalities declined
The number of fatal drunk driving accidents declined over holidays during the period 2010 through 2018, but this was only a 4% change. In spite of the dip, holiday-related drunk driving crashes are typically deadlier for everyone who happens to be on the road with an intoxicated driver. This is because there were 110 fatalities for every 100 fatal drunk driving accidents occurring during this period.
People between the ages of 21 to 64 comprised 83% of victims of deadly drunk driving crashes over the holidays. Most of those people were from the 25- to 34-year-old group. Florida saw 110 drunk driving fatalities happen on Christmas and 90 over Thanksgiving.
In terms of season, summer usually has the most alcohol-related accidents due to more people on the roads and drinking during their off-time. This results in many fatalities occurring during the Fourth of July and Memorial Day as well.
You can’t control what other drivers do, but being smart and avoiding alcohol when you plan to drive could help reduce the number of drunk driving accidents at any time of year.