As the holiday season approaches and many people are driving home to visit their families, pedestrian deaths increase in the month of December mainly because of drunk or drugged drivers. In general, around 27 people die daily in drunk driving accidents, and more than 10,000 people in total suffer fatal injuries each year across the United States. The majority of casualties from alcohol-related driving accidents occur on New Year’s Eve. 

Since 1981, officials from all over the country have made great efforts to raise awareness of staying sober while driving in December, which has been declared National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month. 

In May of 1980, 13-year-old Cari Lightner was killed by Clarence Busch in a drunk driving accident. It had been found out that this wasn’t the first time Busch drove while intoxicated when he was arrested by the police. At the time, Busch was very unlikely to be admitted to jail as drunk driving had not been an extremely serious issue that came with a prosecution. 

This unacceptable fact brought motivation to Cari Lightner’s mother, Candace Lightner, to take action and speak up about this issue. This resulted in the establishment of a non-profit organization known as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which rapidly grew across the nation. Lightner made sure the public knew how significant the issue of drunk driving was, and had legislators enact even stricter laws regarding this matter which included prosecuting offenders with jail time and license suspensions. This eventually led to President Ronald Reagan setting the legal drinking age at 21 and appointing Lightner as part of a commission to address the problem. In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that police sobriety checks on public roads are constitutional. All 50 states adopted the blood alcohol level limit to be 0.08. Up to this day, Lightner continues to promote the importance of anti-drunk and drugged driving. 

Besides alcohol, drugs also contribute to traffic deaths. MADD has expanded its mission statement to also include drugged driving. Mixing alcohol with opioids can increase sedation in drivers and severely affect driving. It has been reported that there was a significant jump in the number of drivers killed while driving under the influence of prescription drugs. Aside from drivers, the risk of mortality also goes into those of innocent pedestrians walking into the path of the drugged drivers. 

“Always take caution on the road,” commented Arcadia High School junior Channing Huang. “Drunk driving impairs your judgment and increases the likelihood of a fatal collision.”

Taking this into consideration, there are many ways to lessen the number of fatalities of drunk driving or even prevent them from ever happening again in the future. One would be installing ignition interlocks in vehicles to measure alcohol on drivers’ breath. This keeps vehicles from starting if drivers have a blood alcohol content above a certain level of safety. Another possibility is to implement a group of police patrolling at a certain time and area where drunk driving accidents are most common in order to reduce crashes. 

With all that in mind, it is highly encouraged that one takes responsibility after consuming alcohol in order to control the number of accidents caused by drunk driving overall. Doing this will slowly decrease the number of deaths this time of the year, and hopefully, ensure a peaceful holiday. 

Photo by Johan Funke