Texas Is One Of The Best, Yet One Of The Worst At This

It's funny to see some of the surveys that come out sometimes, especially when it pertains to Texas. How we can be one of the best in a category, yet still manage to be one of the worst in the same category is baffling to me.

When it comes to the category of drunk driving, Texas finds itself ranking towards the top AND the bottom of the category. I know, you're sitting there asking yourself how that's even possible, because drunk driving is drunk driving.

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Well yes, you'd be correct, except there are sub-categories to it. There's how we perform when it comes to drunk driving itself, then there's where we stand in drunk driving awareness. Now, one would think that it would correlate with one another and be relatively similar.

In Texas, it's not. Let's start with the drunk driving awareness side of things. When broken down by region, we are the most drunk driving aware state in the Southwest. So what exactly does that mean? According to a study from Diono, it means we top the list in our region in BAC awareness.

Our score of 56.78 in knowing what the BAC levels are here in Texas puts us mid-pack nationally, but it says we are pretty darn aware of what the limits are when it comes to driving drunk. We know the spot we can't get to before we get busted for it.

Despite that knowledge, Texas is one of the worst in the nation when it comes to drunk driving. The most recent data places Texas as the third WORST state when it comes to drunk driving offenses.

Now I understand we are a big and populous state, but the percentages is what they're basing it off of, and it's not exactly sobering.

42.37% of all the traffic deaths in Texas for the year 2023 were drunk driving related, with five people per 100,000 in Texas being killed by a drunk driver. We had 340 people arrested for drunk driving in 2023 per 100,000 residents which is an absolutely astronomical number.

Couple that with the fact that we are the third worst state when it comes to underage drunk drivers involved in fatal car crashes, and you find yourself with a bit of an epidemic on your hands. How are we so aware of drunk driving yet continue to do it?

With the 4th of July right around the corner, we need to take our awareness and actually put it to use. Let's not hop on the road after that all-day drinking adventure you went on at your friends party. Find a sober ride home, your car will still be at your friends house in the morning.