An evening out turned tragic when Christine Alexander made the decision to get behind the wheel of a car with a blood alcohol concentration level of 0.14 (almost twice the legal limit). Alexander crashed her vehicle into her boyfriend, who was ahead of her on his motorcycle. He flew 65’ into the air, crashed onto her windshield and then landed on the pavement. He did not survive.

After serving 120 days in a women’s correctional facility, and 5 years probation, Alexander made it her goal in life to share her story in order to show people the harsh reality of drunk driving. She is now a professional speaker on the dangers drugs and alcohol, with the goal of helping others to avoid the trauma she has experienced.

Click here to read her story.

If you feel like you’re unable to drive safely, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has a SaferRide app that allows people who are impaired to call a taxi or a friend to them up. The app is available for Android devices on Google Play [external link], and Apple devices on the iTunes store [external link].

A few sobering facts about drunk driving:

• It is against the law in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico for adults over the age of 21 to drive a vehicle if you have a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher.
• In 2015, 10,265 people died in drunk driving crashes. The drivers involved in 67 percent of those crashes had a BAC of .15 or higher (nearly twice the legal limit of .08).
• During the 2015 Christmas holiday period (6 p.m. December 24th – 5:59 a.m. December 28th), the nation lost 34 lives per day in drunk driving crashes—a total of 120 deaths over 3.5 days.
• During the New Year’s holiday period (6 p.m. December 31, 2014 – 5:59 a.m. January 5, 2015) the nation lost 31 lives per day in drunk driving crashes—a total of 139 deaths over 4.5 days.
• These two holidays combined accounted for 259 lives lost in drunk driving crashes. 

Click here to view NHTSA’s 2015 Alcohol-Impaired Driving Traffic Safety Fact Sheet

Click here to view NHTSA’s 2015 State Alcohol-Impaired-Driving Estimates Safety Fact Sheet