We know that people are likelier to drink on holidays (yes, the Super Bowl is an unsanctioned national holiday), and that usually means an increase in alcohol-related traffic crashes.
But what’s surprising is just which drivers are potentially at a higher risk on the road after the big game.
According to physicians at the University of Toronto, cities of losing teams see the highest rate of DUI crashes during the Super Bowl. The researchers, Donald A. Redelmeier and Craig L. Stewart, looked at fatal crash data from 27 consecutive Super Bowls between 1975 and 2001.
New York and Colorado had the most losses (five and four, respectively) and showed a 147 percent increase in fatal crashes during those nine Super Bowls. California had the most wins (eight) and showed no increase.
“We observed a 41 percent relative increase in the average number of fatalities after the telecast,” the researchers wrote in January 2003 in the New England Journal of Medicine. But the increase in fatalities and non-fatal crashes “was generally larger in states with a losing team than neutral states and larger in neutral states than states with a winning team.”
The takeaway here as always is, Don’t drink and drive — ever. If you’re going to drown your sorrow, do it at home or with a designated driver. And please watch out for your friends and family.
