Everyone’s heard warnings not to drink and drive, but walking after drinking may be just as hazardous.
Thirty-two percent of the 4,881 pedestrians killed in 2005 were legally drunk, meaning they had blood-alcohol concentrations of .08 or higher. That is slightly higher than the 31 percent of drivers killed in 2005 (the latest year for statistics) who were legally drunk, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
NHTSA’s data do not say whether inebriated pedestrians are staggering into roadways, but drunken drivers do not appear to be the principal cause. NHTSA offered no additional comment on the statistics.
Only 11 percent of drivers involved in pedestrian fatalities had BACs of .08 or higher. That is down from 15 percent in 2001, when one-third of the 4,882 pedestrians killed were drunk.
“It’s a problem people don’t talk about a lot, but it is an important problem,” Ralph Hingson, a director at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said of drunken pedestrians. “Generally, when there is a pedestrian death, there has been an error on the part of both the pedestrian and the driver.”
For example, a driver may be speeding and can’t stop in time when a pedestrian jaywalks. Only 20 percent of pedestrian fatalities occur at intersections.
Forty-five percent of pedestrian deaths occur between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m., when pedestrian traffic is often at its lowest levels. On weekends, it climbs to 59 percent in those hours.
Pedestrians should exercise more caution at night because visibility is reduced for drivers and more drivers are likely to have been drinking, but Hingson said, “Pedestrians who are intoxicated are least likely to do these things.”
The frequency of intoxication among pedestrians killed is consistent with other alcohol-related death and injury patterns, Hingson said. Injuries are the leading cause of death among Americans younger than 44, and Hingson says “alcohol is a major contributing factor.”
Forty percent of traffic fatalities are “alcohol-related,” meaning at least one person involved in a fatal accident had been drinking. Nearly half of homicide victims test positive for alcohol, and more than 40 percent of injuries treated in emergency rooms are alcohol-related, he said.
Among the 1,713 pedestrians age 21 to 44 who died in 2005, nearly half were drunk, according to NHTSA.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving focuses on the bigger issue of impaired motorists, but spokeswoman Misty Moyes says the advice MADD gives to drivers applies to pedestrians.
“Everybody should arrange for a safe way home,” Moyes said. “The key is to be smart and do that before you start drinking.”
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rpopely@tribune.com
