A New Year’s Eve reality
Carson and Huong were two of 10 Oklahomans who lost their lives on Oklahoma’s roads during last year’s New Year’s holiday. Five of these fatalities occurred in four separate alcohol-related crashes, according to the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office.
“It is heartbreaking,” Sawatzky said.
“We, as troopers, are not immune to the emotions that come with working fatality crashes,” he said. “It is never easy to see innocent young people injured from a crash caused by someone else’s poor choice to consume alcohol or drugs and get behind the wheel of a vehicle.”
Nationwide, almost 800 people died in December 2016 alone in drunken driving-related crashes. Nearly 30 percent of those who died in traffic crashes were in incidents involving a driver with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher. In Oklahoma that percentage was 50 percent.
Each year agencies across the country take note of fatalities and injuries caused by DUI crashes, arrests made and how many people may have been pulled over during any given enforcement campaign. While those numbers are already bigger than officials would like them to be, Sawatzky thinks that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“I believe it’s a bigger issue than what is realized,” he said. “We only have limited numbers of troopers in the state to patrol the highways and turnpikes. The patrol conducts sobriety checkpoints on nearly every major holiday. Yet this only gets a small fraction of the violators that are DUI and go undetected.”
This has to change, as every impaired driver could be the next to cause a serious crash.
Sawatzky also cautioned responsible drivers who are out and about sober on New Year’s Eve.
“Please be careful. Stay off of your phones and be hyper-vigilant,” he said.
If you spot an impaired driver, call 911 or *55 to report.
A DUI crash is never a routine call for troopers and officers everywhere across the state. The consequences of a crash affect their communities, their neighbors.
“My family and your family drive down our turnpikes, highways and city streets daily,” Sawatzky said. “We do not want to be the person who has to knock on your loved one’s door, wake them up, and let them know their family member was killed by a DUI driver.” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in a special year-end Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over enforcement mobilization to get drunken drivers off the street and to spread the word about the dangers of impaired driving.
“Don’t drink and drive!” Sawatzky said. “Utilize services like taxis and Uber if you choose to go out and consume alcohol. Always have multiple transportation options available and drink responsibly.”
Impaired driving offenders often serve jail time, lose their driver’s licenses, are charged higher insurance rates, and pay dozens of other unanticipated expenses such as court costs, car towing and repairs, and lost wages due to time off from work. But the ultimate cost of drunken driving is causing a traffic crash that injures or kills.
“It only takes one poor choice to alter the rest of your life, your family’s life and the lives of others,” Sawatzky said. “Law enforcement will be relentlessly pursuing intoxicated drivers and those engaged in criminal activity throughout the holidays.”
For more information and resources, visit enduiok.com.
This article is sponsored by the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office.