What are the chances? Every day in America numerous people are killed in car accidents. How often do these fatal accidents involve someone who has been drinking? The following report explores how I calculated the probability of a person in the United States being killed in an alcohol related car accident. Edgar Snyder and Associates is a law firm that represents people who have been injured in car accidents. In a website titled Drunk Driving Accidents Statistics, Edgar Snyder and Associates explores the statistics surrounding alcohol related car accidents.
Throughout the article, Edgar Snyder and associates discuss statistics for car accidents that occurred in 2009 and the years prior. For the purposes of this study, I will focus my calculations solely on the information gathered about car accidents in 2009. I chose to use the information given by Edgar Snyder and Associates to calculate the probability of someone being killed or injured in a car accident where alcohol was involved. The website discusses the number of fatal car accidents, and the number of those accidents which were alcohol related. It also explores how the risk increases for individuals who drink and drive under the legal drinking age of 21. Legally, the national blood alcohol content allowed for individuals over the age of 21 is less than .08. This means that a person cannot have a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher and legally operate a vehicle. Out of 10,839 people who were killed in an alcohol related crash 67% were riding with people whose blood alcohol level, or BAC, was above the legal limit. According to the website three out of every ten people will be involved in an accident that involves alcohol at some point in their life. There were 33,808 people killed in car accidents in 2009. Out of those 33,808 there were 10,839 accidents in which alcohol was involved. This means that 32% of these car accidents involved a person who was driving under the influence of alcohol. This statistic proves that it is extremely dangerous to consume alcohol and get behind the wheel of a car.
The website also discusses that every day in Pennsylvania 26 people are injured in alcohol related car accidents. In North Carolina alone there were 1,314 fatal car accidents in the year 2009. Out of those fatal car accidents, 363 deaths involved alcohol. That leads to about 28% of people who were killed in a car accident because of a drunk driver. It is also a fact that more accidents involving alcohol occur at night. It is actually four times more likely for a fatal alcohol-related car crash to occur at night as opposed to during the day. This issue relates to topics explored in class. In chapter four, Empirical Probability is discussed. To find the Empirical Probability of something the number of times and event occurred is divided by the total number of times the event was repeated. In this case I will take the total amount of fatal car accidents in 2009, and divide it by the number of those car accidents that were alcohol related.
To show the Empirical Probability of an individual involved in a fatal alcohol-related car accident, I used the total number of accidents in the United States, 33,808, and the total number of accidents which involved alcohol, 10,839. I then decided to look at Hawaii, Connecticut, and North Carolina because of their high fatality rates associated with alcohol-related car accidents.

P (X) = Total number of fatal car accidents