Click here for linkATLANTA (AP) -- Drunken driving incidents have fallen 30 percent in the last five years, and last year were at their lowest mark in nearly two decades, according to a new federal report.
The decline may be due to the down economy: Other research suggests people are still drinking as heavily as in years past, so some may just be finding cheaper ways of imbibing than by going to bars, night clubs and restaurants.
"One possibility is that people are drinking at home more and driving less after drinking," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC statistics - released Tuesday - are based on a 2010 national telephone survey of about 210,000 U.S. adults. The respondents were kept anonymous.
Nearly 1 in 50 said they'd driven drunk at least once in the previous month. That equates to about 4 million Americans driving drunk last year.
About 60 percent said they drove drunk just once, but some said they did it daily.
That led to a CDC estimate of more than 112 million episodes of drunk driving in 2010. That's more than 300,000 incidents a day.
imbibes, imbibing, (imbibed)
1. To imbibe alcohol means to drink it. (FORMAL, often HUMOROUS)
They were used to imbibing enormous quantities of alcohol...
No one believes that current nondrinkers should be encouraged to start imbibing.
Total Members: