Over the years, we have all seen and heard the public service announcements and government campaigns against drunk driving. Just this week, in fact, we blogged on the topic, noting that Arizona police would have extra drunk driving patrols out on New Year's Eve. But a recent report indicates that it might be time to expand the notion of unsafe drinking behaviors to include one that previously seemed harmless: drunk walking.

Earlier this week, economist Steven Levitt made this surprising statement: "If you're faced exactly with two choices, walking drunk or driving drunk, you absolutely should drive drunk." The reason, Levitt says, is that walking while intoxicated creates a huge risk of pedestrian accidents, injuries, and fatalities.

Certainly, Levitt was not implying that driving drunk is an acceptable behavior. But an examination of the statistics shows that intoxicated pedestrians have a higher risk of being killed than intoxicated drivers.

In 2009, approximately 34,000 people were killed in traffic accidents in the U.S. About half of those killed were drivers, and 41 percent of the drivers were drunk. In the same year, about 4,000 pedestrians were killed in accidents, 35 percent of whom were drunk.

Those statistics boil down to this fact: for every mile walked while drunk, the risk of dying is eight times higher than every mile driven. So if you need to travel one mile, you are eight times more likely to die if you walk that mile than if you drive it.

In addition, New Year's Day is one of the deadliest days of the year for pedestrians, and nearly 60 percent of those who die on the holiday are intoxicated. So whether you are walking or driving to and from your New Year's celebration, be sober and be careful.

Source: Marketplace, "Friends don't let friends walk drunk," Stephen Dubner, Dec. 27, 2011