The NHTSA estimates somewhere around 11,500 casualties every year stemming from drunk driving, based on data from 2015 to 2024. Another 300,000 injury-causing car crashes are attributed to alcohol. Around 55% of drivers involved in serious or fatal crashes test positive for at least one impairing substance.
Whether or not you could cite these exact numbers off the top of your head, we’re not telling you anything you don’t know. Alcohol and drugs play a significant role in traffic accidents, fatal or otherwise, and we need to address the problem. The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) is doing just that, in cooperation with Responsibility.org, and the National Alliance to Stop Impaired Driving (NASID), cracking down on impaired driving via a series of grants issued to three different states. Here’s what you need to know.
State Highway Offices Will Receive Direct Support
According to a press release, the GHSA, Responsibility.org, and NASID have banded together to award grants to State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) across the country in order to reduce impaired driving, “a serious, yet preventable threat to roadway safety.” The aim is to strengthen the complex DUI system and prevent further lives from being lost.
The program is currently in its 12th year, and has awarded roughly $1.35 million in grants to state highway offices over the last decade.
“Impaired driving remains one of the most persistent and complex threats to roadway safety, and states need strong tools, training, and partnerships to respond effectively.”
– Jonathan Adkins, Chief Executive Officer of GHSA
The grants will be awarded in $40,000 increments across three states in order to help SHSOs and criminal justice professionals to “improve their ability to identify impaired drivers, and remove them from the road through enhanced toxicology testing, mobile breath-testing tools, and specialized training.”
Three States Will Receive Grants
The GHSA press release names three states as the recipients of the grants.
Kansas
The focus for the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) is largely on improving methods for detecting a full range of drugs appearing in impaired driving cases. Fentanyl detection has reportedly “quadrupled in recent years,” and “novel psychoactive substances” are said to create new challenges.
If you’ve never heard of novel psychoactive substances, the term refers to unregulated “legal highs.” That is, synthetic blends of fake marijuana, cocaine, MDMA, and other drugs. In many cases, these products sold at gas stations are considerably more dangerous than the real thing, and they present a unique challenge for traffic safety and law enforcement professionals because they are an unknown factor. We don’t always know how they’ll affect people, or what we’re looking for in the driver’s samples.
Kansas will put much of its grant money toward “expanded testing capacity,” meaning that we’ll get better at identifying this stuff.
Sources: GHSA, PubMed Central (cannabis), PubMed Central (caffeine), Health University of Utah, Cleveland Clinic.
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