1 in 12 admit they have driven while drunk

EAGAN, Minn., Sept. 1 (UPI) -- The number of U.S. drunken-driving fatalities has fallen, but 1 in 12 adults admit they may have driven while drunk within the last year, a survey indicates.

A survey by legal Web site FindLaw.com says 7 percent of U.S. adults say they have driven within the last 12 months even though they thought they may have been over the legal blood alcohol limit for drinking and driving in their state.

The survey also says:

-- Men were almost three times more likely than women to say they have driven when they thought they were above the legal limit.

-- Younger drivers ages 18 to 34 were more than twice as likely as older drivers to admit the same behavior.

-- Of those drivers who admitted driving while possibly over the legal limit,12 percent say they have been arrested for driving while intoxicated sometime in their life.

The survey was conducted using a demographically balanced telephone survey of 1,000 American adults and has a margin of error of plus/minus 3 percentage points.

In 2007, an estimated 12,998 people died in accidents where a driver had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher -- a 3.7 percent drop from the 13,491 fatalities in 2006, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said last week.