Celebrating the upcoming vacation season is okay, simply so long as you designate a driver whereas doing so.
That’s the message that the Manteca Police Division put out this week within the lead-up to the Christmas and New Yr’s Eve holidays – two distinct holidays the place DUI arrests usually enhance with the consumption of alcohol and different intoxicating substances.
“With regards to consuming drug and/or alcohol and driving, there’s a proper and unsuitable alternative,” Manteca Police Operations Lieutenant Paul Carmona mentioned. “Make the fitting alternative by not driving impaired so everybody is ready to benefit from the holidays.”
Whereas campaigns seeking to stamp out drunk driving was once prevalent within the lead-up to holidays and lengthy weekends when alcohol use historically elevated, the legalization of leisure hashish and the supply of different illicit medication has prompted companies just like the Manteca Police to adapt their message to incorporate something that impairs the power of a driver to securely function a car.
So as to be sure that everyone is ready to benefit from the holidays safely, the Manteca Police Division goes to have further officers on patrol searching for drivers that could be underneath the affect between now and the primary day of 2022 – funding the time beyond regulation essential to implement the saturation patrols via a grant from the California Workplace of Site visitors Security.
That company – which funds saturation patrols, DUI checkpoints, and different safe-driving measures all year long – is run via the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration.
In keeping with the Nationwide Security Council, the variety of alcohol-related fatalities has been trending downward since 1985 – spurred, little question, by the attention campaigns that regulation enforcement and authorities companies have been pushing over the course of the final three many years.
However the statistics for alcohol-related fatalities are nonetheless sobering.
In 2019, alcohol-involved deadly accidents accounted for 28 p.c of the full fatalities on America’s roadways, and 38 p.c of the fatalities over the Christmas vacation concerned someone being drunk.
The yr prior, in line with the NHTSA, there have been 285 drunk-driving associated fatalities between the Christmas and New Yr’s holidays, and that yr roughly one-third – totaling 10,511 individuals – have been killed in accidents the place at the very least one driver was discovered to be drunk or one other intoxicating substance.
And extra Individuals are anticipated to be touring this yr – each by aircraft and by automobile – than they did in 2020.
In keeping with the American Car Affiliation, 109 million Individuals – roughly one-third of the nation – are anticipated to journey over the lengthy Christmas and New Yr’s week. That quantity is near the 119 million vacationers that have been seen earlier than the pandemic shut down journey and drastically altered the best way Individuals spend their holidays.
To contact reporter Jason Campbell e-mail jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or name 209.249.3544.
