Everyone helps pick up DUI tab

Even if you've never had a run-in with a drunken driver, you pay part of the costs of alcohol-related accidents on Utah's highways.

If you insure a vehicle, part of every premium payment helps cover the extraordinary expenses generated by drunken drivers.

"Good drivers finance those who aren't," said Eric Olsen, a public affairs specialist with State Farm Insurance Co. Insurance plans are based on actuarial calculations that spread costs over the insured pool.

When neither driver in an alcohol-related crash has vehicle insurance, social institutions supported by you as a taxpayer may pick up the bills.

In Utah, alcohol-related crashes account for an estimated 12 percent of

the insurance payments made following accidents, according to figures compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The NHTSA figures estimate that reducing alcohol-related crashes by 10 percent in Utah would save $10 million in claims payments and adjustment expenses.

The Insurance Information Institute notes that insurance providers have increasingly joined the battle against drunken driving in an effort to curb the related costs. They sponsor seasonal anti-drunken-driving campaigns, distribute guidelines for those who serve alcohol and promote anti-drinking events for teenagers, such as the Prom Promise campaign that was held in 22 states last year. Farmers Insurance provides an education course that involves agents, parents and teenagers in a discussion of the hazards of drinking and driving.

A drunken driver is 16 times more likely to be involved in an accident than other drivers, said Ted Miller of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. And the crashes caused by drunken drivers are more likely to cause death, injury and property damage.

Trying to make statistical sense of the data is complicated by several factors.

There are 1.3 million licensed drivers in Utah and approximately 14,000 arrests for drunken driving annually. If extrapolations were straightforward, that would indicate that about 1.1 percent of the licensed drivers cause accidents that generate 12 percent of the insurance payments. But not everyone arrested for DUI causes an accident, and the tally of drunken drivers also includes some who are driving without insurance coverage. That makes the disparity even greater.