Walking while intoxicated can be a high-risk activity

I was doing some research at work and came across this little article. I was vaguely shocked at their statistics. Spoiler alert: December 23 and Jan 1 are the most deadly days for pedestrians. Tomorrow being one of those days I am rather freaked out. Also, we are planning on walking home after the concert at the casino on New Years Eve as it is really close to my condo. I am having second thoughts. Should we perhaps ride our bikes there? Or maybe it's just safer to drink and drive than it is to drink and walk? Either way folks, after having a few drinks make sure you look both ways before crossing the street.

Here's the article from the Vancouver Sun:

For all the warnings not to drink and drive, little is heard about a risky motor activity of another stripe: impaired walking.

Nearly 40 per cent of pedestrians killed on Canadian roads in a recent year had been drinking, with two-thirds of them having a blood-alcohol concentration more than double the legal limit for driving.

Of all the fatally injured pedestrians with booze in their systems, four in five had more alcohol in their blood than allowed for drivers, according to the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators.
Heading into two of the deadliest times of the year for pedestrians -- Dec. 23 and New Year's Day -- experts say there's an urgent need for people to take the dangers of "drinking and walking" seriously.

"You don't think of impaired walking being a big deal, but it definitely is," says Valerie Powell, communications coordinator for the Canada Safety Council.

"A lot of times, at night, people aren't wearing bright clothing and blend in with their surroundings. And when you get an impaired pedestrian, they're not paying attention to the cars around them. That's where the problem comes in."

The CCMTA report, published this year, is based on 2007 data in national databases maintained by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation.

In the U.S., the facts are strikingly similar: according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 38 per cent of fatally injured pedestrians over the age of 15 had blood-alcohol content at or above the legal limit for drivers, with the percentage rising to 53 per cent for deaths between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.

These numbers, although dramatic, likely underplay the problem of so-called walking while intoxicated since many fatally injured pedestrians aren't tested for alcohol.

In Canada, for example, of the 426 pedestrians killed on our roads in 2007, 247 -- or 58 per cent -- were tested.

The figures also don't reflect those people whose impairment led to fatal injuries outside of road settings.

"We often see people who have been drinking that have fallen down the stairs or tripped at home and injured themselves," says trauma surgeon Dr. Thomas Esposito, in a statement issued by the Loyola University Health System. "Others have unwisely chosen to 'get into it' with guns, knives, bottles and fists."

A landmark study in the journal Injury Prevention found Jan. 1 has more pedestrian crash deaths, on average, than any other day of year, with 58 per cent of those killed having high blood-alcohol levels. Halloween ranks second in the data, which looks at the period between 1986 and 2002, followed by Dec. 23.

Susan Bondy, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, says this fits with previous research out of Ontario that found "a really clear pattern" of alcohol sales and consumption increasing during the summer and holiday periods.

"If we're drinking more, and there are more drinking occasions, it follows that the risks should increase," says Bondy. "Spacing out your drinks is a good idea, but the bottom line should be to limit the amount consumed. There's nothing magic that will turn wine into water."