Drunk Driving

8/26/10 - According to the National Highway Safety Administration, one in 12 drivers admitted driving drunk at least once over the course of a year.

Twenty percent of the people surveyed said they'd driven at least once in the last year within two hours of drinking an alcoholic beverage.

The survey found that 8 percent of all drivers -- an estimated 17.2 million Americans -- have driven even though they thought their blood-alcohol level exceeded the .08 percent blood-alcohol standard for drunken-driving arrests. And about 8 percent said they've ridden in a car driven by someone they thought was too drunk to drive. Among them, men 21 to 24 years old were most likely to ride in a car with a drunk driver.

The survey also asked drivers who said they drove within two hours of drinking how many drinks they thought they could have before being too drunk to drive. Forty percent said they could drive after three drinks, and 11 percent said they could drink five.

9/9/09 - A Canadian man has been sentenced to life in prison for mowing down a woman in a wheelchair as he drove drunk. It was his 19th drunken driving conviction. The life sentence handed down by a Quebec judge was the first for a drunken driving conviction in Canada's history.

Roger Walsh, 57, had pleaded guilty to killing Anee Khudaverdian, who was out with her dog on her 47th birthday last year. She was propelled into a ditch after being struck.

Walsh, who admitted he had spent the night drinking, kept driving and was arrested about six miles away after driving into a ditch himself.

Quebec court judge Michel Mercier declared the man incorrigible and said he would be likely to commit further crimes.

Walsh's 18 previous impaired driving convictions and 114 previous convictions in total for assault, uttering threats, breaking and entering, and theft were entered into evidence.