OBJECTIVES: In Rio de Janeiro, the prohibition on driving after drinking alcoholic beverage began on March 19th 2009. Media has reported since then a decrease in the number of vehicle accidents. A study on hospitalization profile and costs was developed from the public perspective to compare pre and post beginning of prohibition periods. METHODS: A public secondary database was accessed to evaluate three periods: pre prohibition (PRE; April 2008 to March 2009); first (FAP; April 2009 to March 2010) and second (SAP; April 2011 to March 2012) years after prohibition. For each period, number of hospitalizations, related costs and mortality rate were evaluated. Costs are presented in 2012 Brazilian Real (BRL). Filters for city (Rio de Janeiro), and group (external causes – transport accidents) were applied. No limits for procedure type, ICD-10 or patient’s age were used. RESULTS: In FAP and SAP, total number of hospitalizations related to transport accidents showed a discrete decrease (4,485 and 4,729, respectively) when compared to PRE number (4,783). However, hospitalization costs showed a small increase in FAP (5,812,999BRL; mean cost per patient: 1,296BRL) and SAP (6,596,924BRL; mean cost per patient: 1,398BRL), when compared to PRE (5,677,670BRL; mean cost per patient: 1,187BRL). Mortality rate, as well as absolute number of deaths has decreased in FAP (165; rate: 3.7) and SAP (211; rate: 4.5) if compared to PRE (224; rate: 4.7). Surgical treatment of tibia fracture was the most impacting procedure in number of hospitalizations (294; 246; and 255 for PRE, FAP and SAP, respectively), and two most impacting cost disease were surgical treatment of politrauma (956,435BRL; 1,190,927BRL; 1,491,951BRL), and surgical treatment of tibia fracture (475,117BRL; 396,793BRL; 391,756BRL), for all three studied periods. CONCLUSIONS: No significant impact in costs were observed after prohibition on driving after drinking alcohol. Absolute number of hospitalizations and mortality rate showed a discrete fall.