El Paso Times
EL PASO, Texas — Unfortunately, a number of people will choose to celebrate the holiday season by drinking and driving. But celebration can quickly turn to tragedy, and local law enforcement agencies are determined to keep that from happening this year.
Police and sheriff’s deputies will be engaged in extra patrols during the holiday season, looking for drunk drivers and getting them off the roads. They began this effort last week for Thanksgiving and will continue through the Christmas and New Year’s holiday period.
There’s good reason for doing this. Police said that of the 59 people who have been killed in traffic accidents this year, 32 were linked to alcohol-related crashes. More than half the deaths were connected to alcohol.
Police Chief Greg Allen made a grim comparison: “Yearly, we lose more people on our roadways than our murder rate.” That’s starkly clear this year, as El Paso has four homicides to date.
Education is an important way to help prevent drunk driving and the tragedies that accompany that behavior. Organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving are important for such education. But strong enforcement and strict and sure punishment also are important.
For example, an item on www.madd.org/statistics shows that “50 to 75 percent of convicted drunk drivers continue to drive on a suspended license.” Apparently, drunk drivers aren’t overly impressed by their slap-on-the-wrist sentences.
Another astounding statistic from MADD: “An average drunk driver has driven drunk 87 times before his first arrest.”
And finally: “This year, 10,839 people will die in drunk-driving crashes.”
Drunk driving isn’t a problem that’s confined to holidays and holiday seasons. It’s an endemic problem and deserves year-round attention. In Texas, for example, the 2009 Legislature nixed interlock and sobriety checkpoint legislation. It would be helpful for these points to be reconsidered in the 2011 session.
Meanwhile, if you feel you have to consume alcohol during the holidays, don’t drive. Use a designated driver. If you’ve had too much to drink at a restaurant, nightclub or bar, call Sun City Cab Co. at 544-2211 for a free ride home.
Don’t turn what should be happy times into tragedy.
Copyright 2010 El Paso Times, a MediaNews Group Newspaper