Safe and Healthy Holiday Travel
The celebrations of the holiday season (beginning with Thanksgiving and continuing through New Year’s Day) typically include more time on the road - shopping, traveling and attending holiday get-togethers. Still, other upcoming holidays such as the 4th of July and Labor Day celebrations also increase the amount of people on the road, as well as the amount of drunk drivers. Traffic crashes are the leading cause of injury and death to children and adults.
It is astonishing to think that every 31 minutes someone is killed in an alcohol-related crash. At holiday times, the number of crashes due to drunk drivers can increase by 10% or more. In 2003, 40% of all fatal traffic crashes involved alcohol, but during the holiday’s the numbers where much higher. During the 2003 Christmas holiday approximately 48% of the crashes involved alcohol, during the Labor Day Holiday it was approximately 51%, for the 4th of July Holiday approximately 55%, and during the New Year’s holiday an astonishing 61% of the crashes involved alcohol. Added together, a total of 1,751 people were killed during those 4 holidays alone.
Children are too frequently the victims in alcohol-related car crashes. Tragically, from 1997-2002, 1,588 (68%) of the 2,335 children killed in an alcohol-related crash were passengers in the car with a drunk driver at the wheel. In 2000 it was reported that nearly 2400 (67% of 3556) drinking drivers were old enough to be the child’s parent or caretaker.
In 2003, drivers 21 to 24 years old were the most likely to be intoxicated (BAC of 0.08 g/dl or greater) in fatal crashes. Thirty-two percent of drivers 21 to 24 years old involved in fatal crashes were intoxicated, followed by ages 25 to 34 (27 percent) and 35 to 44 (24 percent).
Drinking alcohol before driving is often coupled with other risk-taking behaviors. Drunk drivers are less likely to use a seat belt themselves or buckle up their child passengers. Not surprisingly, the likelihood of driving with appropriate safety restraints decreases with the increase in alcohol consumed.
Safe Driving Tips
- Adopt a zero-alcohol-tolerance policy, especially when transporting children.
- Always buckle-up and teach children to buckle-up.
- Secure your child in the appropriate car seat or safety belt every time they ride.
- Check the car seat instructions to be sure about the correct age and weight limits of the car seat.
- Be sure infants ride facing the back of the car until they are at least 1 year old.
- Keep children in a safety seat with a harness as long as possible (per the seat weight and height limits).
- Use a booster seat for children who have outgrown their safety seat, typically around age 4. Many children need to ride in a booster seat until they are age 8-11 years.
- Keep children in the back seat properly buckled up until they are at least 12 years old; recent research suggests they ride in the back seat until age 15.
Sources:
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (n.d.) Traffic Safety Facts 2003: Alcohol, DOT HS 809 761 Washington, DC: NHTSA.
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (n.d.) Traffic Safety Facts 2003: A Compilation of Motor Vehicle Crash Data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the General Estimates System, Alcohol, DOT HS 809 775 Washington, DC: NHTSA.
- RA Shults, PhD. (February, 2004) Child Passenger Deaths Involving Drinking Drivers –
- United States, 1997—2002. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 53(04);77-79
- Quinlan KP, Brewer RD, Sleet DA, Dellinger AM. (May, 2000) Characteristics of child passenger deaths and injuries involving drinking drivers. Journal of the American Medical Association 283(17):2249-2252.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Dept. of Transportation (US). Traffic safety facts 2003: young drivers. Washington (DC): NHTSA; 2004b [cited 2005 June 19]. Available from: URL: www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/TSF2003/809774.pdf.
About This Article:
This information provided by the San Diego State University Foundation.
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