Poor Mental Health, Police Cuts Fueled Spike in Impaired-Driving Deaths COVID

An increase in impaired-driving deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been driven by a national mental health crisis and reductions in policing, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows.

Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, 28% of passenger-vehicle drivers killed in crashes had a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit in most states (0.08% or more).

That rose to 30% in 2020 and remained elevated through 2022. An IIHS analysis of fatal crashes from 2018 to 2022 shows increases in self-reported depressive episodes and suicide plans and reductions in full-time law enforcement personnel were both associated with rises in impaired-driver deaths.

Allowing home delivery of alcohol from bars and restaurants was associated with more impaired-driver deaths, but allowing those establishments to sell to-go drinks was associated with fewer deaths, according to IIHS.

In surveys conducted in May 2020, 60% of U.S. adults reported they had been drinking more with the onset of the pandemic. Sales figures for alcohol also showed a higher volume sold from March 2020 to August 2021 than in the same months in 2017 to 2019, according to IIHS.

The institute reports that mental health factors likely contributed to those increases in consumption. During the pandemic, reports of struggles with the isolation of lockdown, stress related to lack of childcare and lost income, anxiety about health risks and other issues were on the rise.

There was a reduction in policing around the same time, which may have reduced any hesitation that drinkers had about getting behind the wheel. Concerns about contracting COVID prompted some departments to scale back on traffic stops and other routine work, according to the IIHS.

The number of states that allowed bars and restaurants to make home deliveries of alcohol rose from 21 to 37 between January and December of 2020, while the number allowing such establishments to sell alcohol to go increased from 21 states to 45. Home-delivery policies were associated with around 304 additional impaired-driver deaths per year in the states that adopted them.

For reasons that remain unclear, to-go policies alcohol polices were associated with roughly 450 fewer deaths per year in states with those rules in place, according to the IIHS.