| Aug 25 |
Fatal DUI accidents are worst in Texas; lawmakers ponder response
One huge problem is that many drunk driving fatalities are caused by multiple offenders — people who already have been arrested as a drunk driver, but keep driving drunk anyway. While repeat offenders represent only 20 per cent of those arrested for drunk driving, they are a very dangerous one-fifth. How can they be rehabilitated — or kept from driving? |
Texas lawmakers know they must act, but how is the big question. Our state leads the nation in alcohol-related traffic deaths, and Dallas County is the nation’s third-worst for per capita drunk driving fatalities. Such tragic distinctions cannot continue.
| Aug 11 |
Harris County is nation’s worst for drunk driving car accident fatalities
This sobering threat to public safety is why local law enforcement agencies are gearing up to bring down the number of drunk drivers. They’re doing this via a multi-agency crackdown. Through Labor Day weekend, law officers will be working overtime to spot drunk drivers and get them off our roads, streets and highways. Another part of the campaign is Choose Your Ride. This program emphasizes that those who drink should do anything but drive a vehicle. Instead, they are urged to take a cab or a bus, or ride with a sober friend or designated driver. Otherwise, they may wind up riding with a police officer — to jail. |
According to Houston’s | Apr 06 |
Are drunk drivers as bad as terrorists? No — worse
The answer to each question is simple: Drunk drivers are slaughtering us. They’ve been doing so virtually since autos were born, and though death numbers have risen and fallen, they’ve never disappeared. Put simply: Drunks kill — and isn’t that reason enough to do something about it? Yet for many, news of another drunk driving fatality seems routine and, unless a loved one was killed, acceptable. Drunk drivers seem to be just a fact of life. But not all facts are unalterable. |
Why should we get mad about drunk drivers, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)? Why should we have zero tolerance toward drunk drivers, pushing for more and stronger laws? Why are drunk driving car wreck accidents like a war against America? And why should anything change?| Feb 10 |
Texas, California cities are tops in drunks, spurring more drunk driving accidents
The magazine’s survey included a city’s alcohol-related car crashes, its number of drunk driving arrests and the severity of its drunk driving penalties. It also based conclusions on death rates from alcoholic liver disease and the frequency of binge drinking. |
Drunk driving accounts for a whopping one third of all U.S. traffic fatalities, or about 12,000 Americans killed in the past year. But drunk driving isn’t the same throughout America. Some cities have worse problems than others with alcohol, as surveyed by | Dec 29 |
Don’t crash New Year’s Eve parties with a drunk driving car accident
It’s always the same story, so you’d think Americans would wake up and learn a vital lesson: Don’t drink and drive. Yet such deaths spike during year-end holidays, and thousands of Americans (nearly 14,000 in 2008) become yearly statistics in drunk driving fatalities. |
Americans love their holiday traditions, including New Year’s Eve. In Japan, the new year isn’t widely acknowledged until people rise the next morning. But in the USA, millions of revelers party past midnight to ring in another year. The only trouble is, such partying often includes heavy drinking and unleashes drunk drivers on our roads.| Dec 23 |
Sweet! Montgomery County tweets drunk drivers’ names in shame game which could work
As Chief Prosecutor Warren Diepraam told KPRC News, “We’ve kind of simplified it by using Twitter, putting that information that’s already out there as a public record . . . on Twitter so that people could follow who’s been arrested.” The idea is to discourage persons from drunk driving via the threat of public humiliation — on top of arrest and possible prosecution. Ligon believes such a tactic could “embarrass the right offender” with the threat of “collateral damages” (public shame) beyond the legal case itself. |
As we brace for the | Apr 20 |
Drunk driving AND calling ensure a car accident
That’s what Houston prosecutors are confronting as they assess the case of a man who reportedly was both drunk and receiving a cell phone call when he ran off a road and into a drainage ditch recently near Bush Intercontinental Airport, causing the unimaginable horror of drowning five young children who were occupants of the vehicle. |
Studies show that persons who call and text while behind the wheel drive as poorly as if they were drunk. Now imagine a driver being drunk and using a cell phone at the same time.| Apr 13 |
Drunk driving robs another life: Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart
But no, that number is still unacceptable. And any progress we’ve made is still tempered by the grim fact that so many traffic deaths come from one particular source of galling carnage: drunk drivers. No matter how much we strive, exhort and pray, drunk drivers are slaughtering innocents on America’s streets and freeways. |
Yes, America had fewer traffic fatalities in 2008 than in any year since 1961. Yes, it’s heartening that while 37,313 people died this way last year, that was 9.1 per cent fewer than the year before.| Jun 27 |
Drunk driving is an indulgence that can’t be indulged
How much is drinking indulgence worth? Is it worth snuffing out a family’s lives? Is it worth spending the rest of your life behind bars? Even for those who often see the world in an alcohol-drenched haze, the answer should be clear. It’s not worth it – not for the drinker, not for his or her victims, not for anyone. Rather, drunk driving is one of the most horrendous yet most persistent tragedies in America, and all because someone thought that heavy drinking – and then driving – would be worth it, it would be OK, it wouldn’t really matter. And then, in an instant, it does matter, and everything changes and never can be the same again. |
We all like to indulge, whether it’s eating too much popcorn at the movies or snoozing away too much of a Saturday morning in bed. But not all indulgences are so innocent.