Don't drink and drive. Consider this: Approximately 40 percent of auto accident deaths involve drinking. In drunk-driving deaths involving children, 64 percent of the children are riding in the drunk driver's car. About 3 in every 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related traffic accident at some point in their lives, the NSC says. If you will be drinking, designate a nondrinker to drive. Or call a cab.

The annual alcohol-related death toll includes: 35,000 auto accident deaths; 15,000 in non-highway accidents; 40,000 deaths due to liver and brain disease or suicide; 125,000 in other alcohol-related conditions/accidents. Two-thirds of all homicides are committed by people who drink prior to the crime. Two to three percent of the drivers on the highway are legally drunk on a typical week-day, and four to six percent on nights and weekends.

Auto accidents annually claim the lives of 41,821 -- that's 115 auto accident deaths a day or one every 13 minutes. Attorney says almost every negligent driver who kills a person on the highways will get away with it because most victims will not sue for negligence. Every 13 minutes in the United States someone will get away with murder. You can count on it. The Federal Highway Administration reports that in the year 2000 auto accidents claimed the lives of 41,821 -- that's 115 auto accident deaths a day or one every 13 minutes.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has just released its preliminary traffic fatality figures for 2002 and they show a slight increase in auto accident deaths over 2001. And guess what? Those damn SUVs are the biggest cause for the increase. The NHTSA reports that 42,850 people died in traffic accidents in 2002, the most deaths since 1990. There were 734 more traffic deaths than in 2001. And as USA Today reported, "about half the increase - 387 deaths - was in sport utility and pickup rollovers."

Of the 50,000 auto accident deaths annually, 23,000 are related to acute alcoholism, 5,000 being teenagers. About 1,500,000 arrests made annually for traffic violation are related to alcoholism.