30 die a day in alcohol-related crashes

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ATLANTA, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- An average of about 30 people a day in 2010 in U.S. motor vehicle crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver, federal health officials say.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said this amounts to one death every 48 minutes and the annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totaled more than $51 billion a year.

Of the 1,210 traffic deaths among children ages 0-14 years in 2010, 17 percent involved an alcohol-impaired driver, the CDC said.

Though episodes of driving after drinking dropped 30 percent in the past five years, it remains a serious problem -- alcohol-impaired drivers were involved in about one-third of crash deaths in 2009, the CDC said.