Well, the numbers are in and Wyoming has received the dubious honor of being the deadliest state in America for drunk drivers.
According to a recent Forbes Life article quoting numbers from the National Center for Statistics and Analysis (part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), the state of Wyoming experienced “13 drunken driving-related deaths” per 100,000 residents in the 2006 calendar year (the last full year of data released).
Part of the reason for such horrific statistics can be blamed on a combination of the small population–515,000 residents in 2006–and the large number of “travelers… passing through” the state. But more importantly, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Wyoming is one of just eleven states that consider sobriety checkpoints as unconstitutional and therefore the local police never conduct them.
On the other end of the spectrum, New York experienced the least amount of Drunk Driving fatalities, just 2.06 per 100,000 residents in 2006. And that makes New York almost seven times safer than Wyoming. Well, sort of…
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