Alcohol is associated with an increased risk of crash involvement. Recent research is also indicating that alcohol has a potentiating effect on injury. Alcohol may also have an effect on time of death for fatal crash victims.

Data were analyzed from the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) for the years 1982-1988 to investigate the effect of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels on time to death and mean time to death for fatally injured drivers.

The results showed that significantly greater proportions of drivers with high BAC levels (.10 g/dl or greater) died within 30 minutes of their crash compared to drivers with .00 g/dl and those with .01-.09 g/dl. High BACs appear to increase the probability of a crash and the probability of sustaining fatal injury and rapid death, given a crash has occurred. However, these findings should be considered preliminary since it was not possible to control directly for crash severity, which could also be related to time of death. Future analyses will examine this issue. These findings coupled with other research could have implications for emergency medical services scene and hospital arrival times and for drunk driving countermeasure evaluations.