Higher alcohol taxes linked to fewer fatal car accidents

On behalf of Aiken and Aiken P.C. Personal Injury Attorneys posted in Wrongful Death, on Thursday, April 9, 2015

When a state raises the excise tax on alcohol, there may be a chance that fatal car accidents will go down. According to a new study, small tax hike of less than a penny per glass of beer or wine and less than a nickel per glass of liquor could reduce fatal alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes by over 25 percent. Accidents involving young people experienced an even greater decline, and accidents with drunk drivers went down by the same amount. These findings could have important implications for Massachusetts drivers and tax payers. Alcohol has become much more affordable in recent decades because alcohol taxes have not kept pace with inflation. Having ten drinks a day in 1950 would cost nearly half of a person’s disposable income while in 2011, those drinks would only cost 3 percent. Given that alcohol-related crashes result in almost 10,000 deaths and 500,000 injuries in the United States every year, the relatively low cost of alcohol may be a matter of concern. The study, which was published in the American Journal of Public Health, used ten years of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration records to compare fatal motor vehicle crash data before and after the tax increase in Illinois. Researchers also compared Illinois data to data from Wisconsin, which did not institute an alcohol tax increase. After controlling for other factors, including traffic safety initiatives, weather and the economy, the study found that the tax increase was responsible for a reduction in fatal accidents. The trauma of losing a loved one in a fatal accident involving alcohol is often coupled with serious financial losses. Families of victims may wish to seek the assistance of an attorney in filing a wrongful death lawsuit, which might result compensation medical or funeral expenses.