Make holidays happy, don’t drink and drive

The holiday season is a time of joy where families and loved ones come together to enjoy the holidays and ring in the New Year. Children are home from college and friends and relatives travel long distances on our nation’s highways to be together. Unfortunately, all too often the holiday season is marred by fatal traffic crashes. Sadly, many of these crashes are preventable especially those involving impaired driving.

While alcohol-impaired driving is always a major concern in motor vehicle crashes, there are certain times of the year when the problem is more prevalent, such as holidays. The percentage of impaired drivers involved in fatal crashes during the last two weeks of December, the Christmas-New Years holiday period, consistently shows more people driving intoxicated then at any other times of the year.

Fatal crash data has consistently shown drivers 21 to 24 years old have the highest level of involvement in alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, compared to drivers of all other ages. In 2007, more than one-third (35 percent) of 21- to 24-year-old drivers involved in fatal crashes were alcohol impaired, blood alcohol concentration BAC .08 or higher. While drivers 21 to 24 constituted 11 percent of all drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2007, they constituted 18 percent of all alcohol-impaired drivers involved in fatal crashes, making them the most over involved age group for alcohol-impaired drivers.

In 2007, over 1,700 Arizona drivers were arrested for DUI in the month of December. In that same year in Arizona, 1,066 people lost their lives in fatal traffic accidents where alcohol was a factor.

The Maricopa Police Department wishes to remind everyone to have a happy and safe holiday season by not drinking and driving.

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