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