Substance Use and Abuse in Durham County - Stablerack

The number of fatal crashes in Durham County has not changed much since 2004; however, the
percent of fatal crashes related to alcohol has increased since 2004 (see Table 8). Exceptions
include 2010, which had a larger number of crashes, and 2009, which had a small percentage of
fatal crashes which were related to alcohol.
[Table 8]
Total crashes and fatal crashes in Durham County related to alcohol, 2004-2011
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Total Crashes 8,510 8,366 7,650 7,654 7,459 7,424 7,234 7,725
Total Crashes
related to alcohol
283 300 287 261 318 276 276 304
Fatal Crashes 31 21 22 21 23 16 21 12
Fatal Crashes
related to alcohol
7 3 3 5 7 2 12 4
% of total crashes
related to alcohol
3.3% 3.6% 3.8% 3.4% 4.3% 3.7% 3.8% 3.9%
% of fatal crashes
related to alcohol
22.6% 14.3% 13.6% 23.8% 30.4% 12.5% 57.1% 33.3%
Source: NC Alcohol Facts
Of all the crashes that resulted in injuries in Durham County, alcohol plays a major role. According
to the NC Division of Motor Vehicles, 33.3% of these fatal accidents involved alcohol in 2011,
which is similar to NC (32.6%) (45). Approximately 242 injuries in 2011 in Durham County were
related to traffic accidents involving alcohol. Looking at Figure 30, since 2000, of all reported
crashes with fatal injuries, a higher percentage of these crashes were related to alcohol compared
to the percentage of crashes with non-fatal injuries that were related to alcohol. For example, in
2011, 33.3% of crashes that resulted in a fatal injury were related to alcohol, while only 7.6% of
crashes with a non-fatal injury were related to alcohol.
Substance Use and Abuse in Durham County 48