Drinking and driving kills 1.2 Brazilians an hour, survey found
A milestone in the fight against traffic violence in Brazil, the Lei Seca (“Dry Law”) was enacted 15 years ago this Monday (Jun. 19). To remember the date, Brazilian NGO Center for Information on Health and Alcohol—or Cisa—released a report on accidents caused by alcohol use in the country. The data stem from the Ministry of Health.
The document states that 10,887 people lost their lives as a result of drinking and driving in 2021—an average of 1.2 deaths per hour.
“That’s a really appalling number if we consider that [these] deaths are completely avoidable. All you have to do is not drink,” says Cisa researcher and psychologist Kaê Leopoldo. According to the study, approximately 5.4 percent of Brazilians reported driving after drinking, an index that has proved stable in the country.
Despite alarming, the death rate for every 100 thousand people in 2021 was 32 percent lower than in 2010, two years after the law was enacted. The yearly number of deaths fell from seven to five for every 100 thousand citizens in the period.
In Leopoldo’s view, the amount is excessively high, but “we need to understand that the curve is moving downwards. There has always been a downward trend over the ten years surveyed,” he noted.
Common victims
Victims of accidents involving alcohol consumption are mostly male: 85 percent of hospital admissions involve men, while 89 percent of deaths are men. “Regarding the age range, people aged 18 through 34 are the most affected,” the text reads.
Cisa warns that there is no safe volume of alcohol to drink before driving. Center head and psychiatrist Arthur Guerra noted that many wrongly believe that a small alcohol intake would not interfere with their ability to drive.
“In small quantities, alcohol is already capable of altering the driver’s reflexes, and as the concentration of alcohol in the blood rises, so does the risk of involvement in serious traffic accidents, as it leads to decreased attention, false perception of speed, a longer reaction time, drowsiness, reduced peripheral vision, and other neuro-motor alterations,” he concluded.
