Temper tradition with sobering stats

Monday night we ring in a new year with festivities, friends, family and fireworks. It’s a grand tradition too often marred by tragedy. We know it’s been said many times and in many ways, but don’t drink and drive.

We can cite plenty of what should be sobering statistics from state and national sources:

• In Alaska, 48 percent of the 72 traffic fatalities in 2005 involved alcohol; 43 percent involved people with a blood-alcohol content of .08 or more.

• Alaska has the highest rate of fatal drinking and driving accidents.

• About three in every 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives.

• Alcohol involvement in fatal crashes is more than three times as high at night as during the day (61 percent vs. 18 percent). For all crashes, the alcohol involvement rate is more than four times as high at night.

• The highest rates of drunk driving in fatal crashes in 2000 were recorded for drivers 21 to 24 years old (27 percent), followed by ages 25 to 34 (24 percent) and 35 to 44 (22 percent).

• In 2006, an estimated 17,602 people died in alcohol-related traffic crashes — an average of one every 30 minutes.

• Alcohol-related crashes in the United States cost the public an estimated $114.3 billion in 2000, including $51.1 billion in monetary costs and an estimated $63.2 billion in quality of life losses. People other than the drinking driver paid $71.6 billion of the alcohol-related crash bill, which is 63 percent of the total cost of these crashes.

And perhaps the most sobering statistic of all:

• One arrest is made for driving under the influence for every 772 episodes of driving within two hours of drinking and for every 88 episodes of driving over the illegal limit in the United States.

While the statistics alone should be enough to stop drinkers from driving, there are human costs the statistics don’t show. Parents burying children whose bodies have been pulled from the tangled wreck of an accident with a drunk driver. Children growing up without a parent, who died because of someone’s revelry. Closed head injuries that ruin futures. Everywhere, lives are endangered when an impaired driver gets behind the wheel of a 1,700-pound weapon of murder and mayhem.

Think it won’t happen to you? Consider the Palmer woman who, at about 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 20, was nearly involved in a head-on collision with Alaska State Troopers. With her 11-year-old daughter and another 11-year-old girl in her Volkswagen, she was driving along the Palmer-Wasilla Highway with a blood-alcohol content of nearly three times the legal limit. The woman says she will enter treatment. She likely realizes how close she came to causing multiple fatalities.

So we urge you to welcome in the new year with responsible revelry. Remember, studies show most people arrested for drunk driving didn’t believe they were affected by their alcohol consumption. Be a careful host and don’t let your guests drive impaired. Don’t get in a car with a drunken driver. Be defensive as you travel the roads Monday night.

And make this your mantra the entire year. The pleasures derived from a few ounces of alcohol just aren’t worth the misery.