Impaired Driving a Problem During the Holidays
The holiday impaired driving crackdown conducted by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) in 2019 ended up with 271 arrests. It encompassed a 30-hour enforcement period, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Every two hours, around 25 motorists were arrested by CHP officers for either being intoxicated or high. During the crackdown, all the available officers are deployed to help drivers and enhance enforcement. Although the period of enhanced enforcement was short compared to the previous three years, it still showed an increase in arrests and fatalities as compared to the period around the Thanksgiving holiday.
Fatalities Over the Christmas Holiday
There were 10 fatalities caused by traffic accidents this year along the highways of California, which equated to a death every three hours. The death rate was two times higher than that of the year before.
Drunk Driving Statistics Over Thanksgiving
During the maximum enforcement period conducted by the CHP in California over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2019, 860 impaired driving arrests were made. Forty-two fatalities occurred that involved DUIs. Two of those deaths occurred around Sacramento as well as 95 of the arrests of intoxicated or drugged drivers.
Drunk or Drugged Driving in 2018
The CHP uses a system of integrated traffic records to tally information on crashes. In 2018, it recorded nearly 350 traffic accident injuries and 16 fatalities that involved a drugged or drunk driver. This was during a maximum enforcement period of 102 hours, resulting in 1,1116 impaired driving arrests.
The Dangers of Impaired Driving
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, each year, more than 10,000 people die in traffic collisions that involve a drunk driver. The following statistics may shock you:
- During 2007, over 56,000 traffic accidents resulting in fatalities occurred, and drunk drivers were involved in 22 percent of those crashes.
- In 2010, almost 33,000 people died in traffic accidents due to drunk drivers.
- In 2016, the states of North Dakota and Montana had the highest number of drunk drivers. That year, 45 percent of the traffic fatalities in these states involved impaired driving.
- In 2017, almost 2,000 people perished in traffic accidents where the driver was below the legal limit of 0.08 percent.
- The number of fatalities caused by drunk drivers decreased by almost 50 percent per 100,000 persons from 1991 to 2017. The decrease was greater among young drivers under the age of 21, which showed a 68-percent decrease.
Help From a Seasoned Lawyer
When you’ve been injured in an impaired driving accident, a seasoned lawyer can help you get fair compensation for your injuries. We send out a team of investigators to the accident site to collect evidence to support your case against the at-fault driver for personal injury damages. This involves talking to witnesses and checking the report filed by the police for errors, as well as looking for traffic surveillance cameras and those at nearby businesses for video footage. To strengthen the case, the investigators perform accident reconstruction. This can show the position of the vehicles before the crash and what happened that caused it. When all the evidence has been gathered, it is turned over to our lawyers. The evidence can be used either in negotiating on your behalf with the insurance company or in preparing a strong case for court.
Sacramento Car Accident Lawyer
I’m Ed Smith, a Sacramento car accident lawyer. Drunk drivers are responsible for many serious injuries and fatalities every year. If an intoxicated driver caused your injuries, I would like to offer you my free and friendly advice. You can reach me at (916) 921-6400 in the Sacramento area code or (800) 404-5400 from elsewhere. Others prefer to connect with me by using the online form.
I am proud to belong to:
You are invited to check out our client reviews and look over cases handled by my law firm previously at:
I’m proud to have worked as an injury lawyer for Sacramento and Northern California for more than 37 years. During that time, I’ve successfully handled many traffic accidents and cases involving traumatic injuries and wrongful deaths.
Photo Attribution: https://pixabay.com/photos/drink-driving-drunk-alcohol-808790/
:cd llo [cs 712]