HURON – A partnership between the Huron Police Department and the Department of Transportation is designed to get drunk drivers off the road and help save lives from now through the Labor Day weekend.
There are many resources available to get them home safely when they’ve been drinking, said Capt. Dan Kight.
“Drunk driving is not acceptable behavior,” he said. “It is essential to plan a sober ride home before you ever leave for the party.”
He said police officers will make no exceptions for drunk driving during the Labor Day holiday. “There are just no excuses,” Kight said.
While the end-of-summer holiday is a time when families and friends gather to celebrate with pool parties, backyard barbecues and other occasions, it has also become one of the deadliest, with drunk drivers endangering themselves and others on their way home.
“Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” is a high-visibility national enforcement campaign that runs through Sept. 3 . There will be increased state and national messages about the dangers of driving impaired, coupled with the enforcement and increased officers on the road with the aim of drastically reducing drunk driving.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 10,497 people were killed in drunk driving crashes in 2016. On average, 10,000 people were killed each year from 2012 to 2016, or one person killed every 50 minutes in 2016. It’s also the equivalent of 20 jumbo jets crashing each year with no survivors.
Over the 2016 Labor Day holiday period between 6 p.m. Sept. 2 and 5:59 a.m. Sept. 6, there were 433 crash fatalities nationwide.
More than one-third involved drivers who had at least a .08 blood alcohol concentration. One-fourth involved drivers who were driving with a BAC almost twice the legal limit.
“We need our community to understand, it’s up to them to make the smart decision to driver sober,” Kight said. “Labor Day and every day.
“Drunk driving is a huge problem in our country and the numbers are rising, little by little,” he said.”
He said it’s not about ticketing drivers, but about getting the message out that drunk driving is illegal and takes lives.
A small silver lining in the statistics from the 2016 Labor Day holiday is that 36 percent of fatalities in traffic crashes involved a drunk driver, one of the lowest percentages over the five-year period from 2012 to 2016.
“The trend for the Labor Day holiday is in a positive direction,” Kight said, “but our goal is to have zero fatalities, always.”
