GEICO Insurance Joins National Commission Against Drunk Driving's Board of Directors

8 January 2001
GEICO Insurance Joins National Commission Against Drunk Driving's Board of Directors
    WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 GEICO Direct, one of the top automobile
insurance companies in the nation, has joined the Board of Directors of the
National Commission Against Drunk Driving (NCADD).
    The NCADD is the private sector successor to the Presidential Commission
on Drunk Driving appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 to develop a
strategy and recommendations to combat this national problem.
    GEICO is the sixth-largest private-passenger auto insurance company in the
U.S., and has a long history of involvement in efforts to combat drunk driving
and improve highway and vehicle safety.  Motor vehicle crashes are the leading
cause of death among Americans 1-34 years old.  According to the U.S.
Department of Transportation, the total societal cost of crashes exceeds
$150 billion annually.  Economic costs of alcohol-related crashes are
estimated to be $45 billion yearly.  An additional $70.5 billion is lost in
quality of life due to these crashes.
    41,611 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 1999.  Approximately
38 percent of these total traffic fatalities were alcohol-related, resulting
in 15,786 deaths.  About 630,000 others were injured in alcohol-related
crashes for an average of one person injured nearly every minute.
    "More Americans have died in alcohol-related traffic crashes over the past
four years alone than the total number of Americans killed in the Vietnam
War," said Walter Smith, Assistant Vice President of Communications for GEICO.
"As an auto insurer, GEICO recognizes the critical need to reduce traffic
deaths and injuries, and we are pleased to join with NCADD in pushing for more
progress in the war on drunk driving."
    The NCADD is a non-profit organization of public and private sector
leaders who are dedicated to minimizing the human and economic losses
resulting from motor vehicle crashes by working to make driving impaired a
socially unacceptable act.
    "Drunk driving is the nation's most frequently committed violent crime,"
said John V. Moulden, President of NCADD.  "Our nation needs to wage a winning
war on drunk driving.  The NCADD is totally committed to this cause, and we
are grateful to GEICO for its support and partnership in this fight to save
lives."
    NCADD believes that national awareness must be combined with targeted
efforts to reach the three most intractable groups of drunk drivers:
21-34-year-old young adults, chronic drunk drivers, and underage drinkers.  In
addition, NCADD is working with GEICO and other highway safety partners to
urge states to pass proven, effective laws, such as the .08 blood-alcohol
standard, to achieve the goal of no more than 11,000 alcohol-related traffic
deaths by the year 2005.