Insurance professionals know the cost of an impaired- or drunk-driving accident — most especially one that results in loss of life — is more far-reaching than the event's financial fallout. In many instances, the lives of victims, the guilty driver, their families and even their communities are forever changed as the result of a drunk driving accident. Each day, roughly 30 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver, according to National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration data from 2016. That's about one death every 50 minutes. To be sure, these tragedies also have very real financial fallout: The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $44 billion, the NHTSA says. On the upside, increased vigilance on the part of law enforcement agencies, municipal leaders and nonprofit organizations to raise public awareness about the dangers of drunk driving appears to have made a positive impact. QuoteWizard.com recently analyzed NHTSA data and determined that drunk driving fatalities nationwide decreased 18% overall between 2000 and 2017. During those years, 43 states nationwide saw a decrease in drunk driving fatalities, QuoteWizard found. The slideshow above illustrates the states that have seen the largest decreases in drunk driving fatalities over the last two decades. Not every state, however, scored well when it came to undercutting these traffic tragedies. Oregon, Wyoming, California, Maryland, North Dakota and Maine all experienced increases in drunk driving fatalities between 2000 and 2017. See also: |

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