Epidemiologic Notes and Reports
Quarterly Table Reporting Alcohol Involvement
in Fatal Motor-Vehicle Crashes
The following table presents alcohol involvement in fatal
motor-vehicle crashes in the United States for April--June 1990.
This table, published quarterly in MMWR, underscores the tragic
impact of alcohol use on highway safety. An accompanying article
(page 397 of this issue) addresses different aspects of the
epidemiology of alcohol-related traffic fatalities (ARTFs).
A fatal crash is considered alcohol-related by the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) if either a driver
or nonoccupant (e.g., pedestrian) had a blood alcohol
concentration (BAC) of greater than or equal to 0.01 g/dL in a
police-reported traffic crash. Persons with a BAC greater than or
equal to 0.10 g/dL (the legal level of intoxication in most
states) are considered intoxicated. Because BAC levels are not
available for all persons involved in fatal crashes, NHTSA
estimates the number of ARTFs based on a discriminant analysis of
information from all cases for which driver or nonoccupant BAC
data are available. These data may reflect seasonal variations in
the occurrence of ARTFs.
Disclaimer
All MMWR HTML documents published before January 1993 are electronic conversions from ASCII text into HTML. This conversion may have resulted in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users should not rely on this HTML document, but are referred to the original MMWR paper copy for the official text, figures, and tables. An original paper copy of this issue can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, DC 20402-9371; telephone: (202) 512-1800. Contact GPO for current prices.
**Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to [email protected].
