Impaired driving is a serious issue in the United States. Just how serious? In 2016 – there’s no data yet for 2017 – someone was killed in an alcohol-related crash every 50 minutes. This means that for every episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones, which lasts just under an hour, 1 person died. That statistic is based on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The CDC website compiles this into actual numbers: 10,497 people died in alcohol-related crashes. That number is up 1.7% from 10,320 people in 2015. Further, 1 million people were arrested for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol in 2016.
“While the number of DUI related deaths increased from 2015, ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft believe they have reduced the incidence of drunk driving,” according to Tsion Chudnovsky, a Spanish speaking DUI lawyer at Abogado de DUI. “Uber partnered with Mothers Against Drunk Driving to study customer behavior. Their research found that 88% of people report Uber has made it easier to& avoid driving drunk.”
“Have ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft decreased drunk driving incidents? It really comes down to where a person lives as to whether they have made an impact or not,” says Randall Isenberg, a felony DWI lawyer in Dallas, Texas.
In order to find out if ride-sharing services made an impact on drunk driving, a study looked at four cities, respectively. Those cities were Las Vegas, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; Reno, Nevada; and San Antonio Texas. In these four cities, Uber ceased operations for a time and then resumed.
For Portland and San Antonio, it seems that drunken driving crashes decreased when Uber resumed operations. That wasn’t the case for Reno.
However, another study found a 25 to 35 percent reduction in alcohol-related crashes since Uber became available in New York City in 2011. This study used a comparison against other major metropolitan areas where ride-sharing services were not yet available.
Yet another study looked at 100 densely populated cities and found that there was no difference in the number of fatal traffic accidents and Uber becoming available. It is important to note that where there was a drop in alcohol-related traffic fatalities, overall traffic fatalities remained much the same.
The availability and use of Uber and Lyft may also be a determining factor in the decrease in traffic-related fatalities. In cities like Las Vegas, where millions of tourists spend vacations every year, many do not bring their own vehicles. The number of Uber and Lyft uses may be higher in such cases, as well as in densely populated urban centers like New York, where parking is limited.
The major point that many of these studies want to reiterate is that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. While the availability of a designated driver with the press of a button may have impacted drunk driving numbers, results are too mixed to definitively say that Uber and Lyft are behind any reductions.
