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Drug and alcohol impaired driving

If you feel different, you drive different. Driving while impaired by any substance is dangerous. Impaired driving happens when someone drives a vehicle under the influence of a substance like marijuana other illegal drugs, prescription or over the counter medicines, or alcohol.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), on average, more than 10,000 people are killed each year in crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. The Nebraska Highway Safety Office says, in Nebraska, one person dies every three days from an alcohol-related crash. Drunk driving is not only against the law, it is a matter of life and death.

Both drunk driving and drug-impaired driving is illegal in the United States, and in Nebraska. Drugged driving is on the rise in Nebraska. According to NHTSA, between 2009 and 2018, of those drivers killed in crashes and tested for marijuana, the presence of marijuana had nearly doubled. In 2018, 46% of drivers who were killed in crashes and were tested for drugs, tested positive.