West Virginia Motorcycle Accident Lawyers

Drugs Related To Crashes In West Virginia

To measure the prevalence of alcohol and drug use among persons killed in motor-vehicle crashes in West Virginia (where test results were available for >80% of fatalities), CDC analyzed 2004 and 2005 data reported by the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which determined that the prevalence of drug use (25.8%) was similar to the prevalence of a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) >0.08 g/dL (27.7%) among persons killed in motor-vehicle crashes. These results suggest that drug use contributes substantially to driver impairment in West Virginia. Measuring the magnitude of this problem nationally will require better surveillance data. Both surveillance and the development of prevention measures are hampered by difficulties in quantifying and defining drug impairment.

In 2004 and 2005, a total of 784 motor-vehicle fatalities resulted from crashes on public roads in West Virginia. Of these, 663 (84.6%) had alcohol test results, 660 (84.2%) had drug test results, and 658 (83.9%) had both. Those not tested were typically persons who did not have a valid antemortem sample available and survived too long after the crash for valid postmortem toxicologic testing. Among all drug tests, 78.6% were conducted on blood or both blood and urine. Nearly all of the remaining tests were urine tests only.

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