Over 42,636 people were reported killed and 2,788,00 were reported injured traffic crashes including automobiles, motorcycles, cyclists, and pedestrians.

Major campaigns to increase safety belt use and to reduce impaired driving, and the efforts of some state legislatures to pass more effective safety belt and drunk driving laws, were major contributors to the reduction in fatalities and in the fatality rate. Specifically, alcohol-related fatalities declined significantly in 2004, to 16,694, the second consecutive year in which alcohol-related fatalities declined. From 1982 until 2004 the percentage of traffic deaths related to alcohol has dropped from 60% to 39%.

However, nearly half of all 15-20 year olds killed in car crashes during prom season in 2004 involved alcohol. In 2004, during weekends around prom (4/2 to 5/23), 46 percent of traffic crash fatalities among 15-20 year olds were alcohol-related. Of these fatalities, 72 percent involved a 15-20 year old driver with alcohol in his/her system.

A 1996 study found that every weekday night from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., one in 13 drivers is drunk (BAC of .08 or more). Between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. on weekend mornings, one in seven drivers is drunk.

In 1999 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that about three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives.

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