Gas prices affect number of DWI crashes

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - While no one likes it when gas prices go up, higher fuel costs do have at least one positive societal benefit: fewer drunken driving crashes and fatalities.

That’s according to Steven Flint, head statistician at the DWI Resource Center in Albuquerque, which tracks drunken driving trends in New Mexico. The relationship between gas prices and DWI crashes has been studied extensively nationwide, he said.

"Interestingly when gas prices go up even dramatically, you only see a small change in the amount of gasoline sold,” Flint said. “But that small change translates to some big differences in the kinds of driving people do.”

One of those big differences is that when gas prices increase, boozers change their behavior. Flint says they don’t necessarily buy less alcohol, but they consume it in a different location.

“People would be drinking alcohol at home more often,” said Sgt. Zak Cottrell of the Albuquerque Police Department's DWI Unit. “They're not spending the money on gas to go out to the bars and drink and then drive home.”

Flint says statistics in New Mexico conform more or less to nationwide trends.

"There's some brilliant statistical methods the mathematicians of the world have come up with to try to determine what numbers mean across time," Flint said.

For example, gas prices in New Mexico hit $4 a gallon for the first time in June 2008. That was up from an average of $3.20 a gallon in the summer of 2007, according to statistics from the DWI Resource Center.

It had a big effect.

The number of alcohol-related crash deaths in July 2008 fell 19 percent compared to the previous year, according to the statistics.

In 2011-2012 when gasoline prices in Albuquerque were more than $3.50 a gallon, alcohol-related crash deaths in those months decreased 15 percent. When gas dropped under $3.50 a gallon, alcohol related crash deaths went up 6 percent.

Flint said the recession also played into the most recent decrease in alcohol-related crash deaths. However research nationwide shows that over the long term, gas prices have a big impact on DWI deaths and crashes.

"We don't take high gas prices and economic recession as good news in any sense, but if we can reduce death and injury along the way, we might as well take that," Flint said.