Consider it Georgia’s gift to holiday drivers this Christmas-New Year’s travel season -- The gift of safer roads and sober drivers...
Consider it Georgia’s gift to holiday drivers this Christmas-New Year’s travel season -- The gift of safer roads and sober drivers. It’s an extraordinary gift made possible by many police who spend these holidays working double-shifts patrolling for drunk drivers, so responsible drivers can reach their December destinations alive.
Why? Because the travel period between Thanksgiving and the New Year is one of the most dangerous and deadly times on the crash data calendar. Traffic crashes killed 139 people just in Georgia last December. Half of them were unbuckled when they died.
According to Director Bob Dallas at the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, the other side of this tragic equation is knowing that one-of-every-five Georgia fatalities is alcohol-related and realizing that every one of those alcohol-related deaths could have been prevented.
That’s why it was around the holiday season ten years ago that the Governor's Office of Highway Safety (GOHS) established a promising new concept to coordinate the enforcement efforts of DUI patrols across the state and crack down on Georgia’s impaired driving offenders. GOHS called their new statewide DUI checkpoint teams the Georgia Traffic Enforcement Network, now known as “GATEN.”
Unless that term is overheard causing heartburn at a DUI defense attorney’s luncheon, average Georgians may never know of this highly effective “GATEN” enforcement network. However most Georgia drivers are well aware of the highway safety initiatives these officers band together to enforce. Under the banner of familiar campaign names like “Operation Zero Tolerance - Over The Limit. Under Arrest,” they strategize to save lives through Georgia’s statewide Traffic Enforcement Networks.
“And we’re indeed thankful we can count on these dedicated partners to run their concentrated patrols and sobriety checkpoints as millions of trusting motorists hit the roads this weekend,” says GOHS Director Dallas. “Georgia’s high visibility network enforcement efforts are crucial in view of startling new holiday driving data just released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).”
The NHTSA numbers show that during normal driving periods, an average of 36 fatalities involving impaired drivers occur nationally every day. The new NHTSA data reveals that daily average jumps to 45 alcohol-involved fatalities per day approaching the Christmas holiday. And the closer we come to the New Year’s travel period, the more deadly it becomes, climbing even higher to 54 fatalities per day involving drivers impaired by alcohol.
“Perhaps the scariest revelation of all is that between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, travelers from Georgia and across the country will unknowingly share the roads with more than 2.8 million drunk drivers who have three or more DUI convictions, and another half million drunk drivers are still out there on the roads after even five or more convictions,” said Director Dallas.
According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, more than 1.3 million people were arrested for driving under the influence during 2005. “Is it any wonder we keep reminding that your best defense against an encounter with a drunk driver is to always buckle your safety belt,” said Dallas.
The Georgia State Patrol’s Christmas holiday traffic count begins Friday, December 21 at 6PM and ends at midnight Christmas Day. The New Year’s holiday travel period follows at 6PM on Friday, December 28 and ends at midnight New Year’s Day.
The State Patrol and the Georgia DOT’s Crash Reporting Unit estimate as many as 25 people could be killed on Georgia roads during the Christmas travel period and another 12 could perish over a similar 102 hour holiday period at New Year’s.
Last year during 78-hour holiday periods, Georgia recorded 2,482 traffic crashes over the Christmas holiday period, with 1,107 injuries and 22 fatalities. During the accompanying New Year’s travel period, seven people were killed and 877 injured in 2,196 reported holiday crashes.
During the 2006 holiday period, alcohol and drugs were identified as contributing factors in six of the 22 traffic deaths over Christmas and 10 of those who were killed were unbuckled when they died. To Georgia’s highway safety professionals, the causes behind those December fatalities sound all too familiar.
This is the second Christmas season that Georgia has mobilized along with thousands of other state and local law enforcement agencies across the country under the new national enforcement campaign called “Over The Limit. Under Arrest.”
“We’re even telling motorists when to watch out for the blue lights. Because it’s not about writing more tickets.. it’s about saving more lives,” said GOHS Director Dallas. Georgia’s statewide Operation Zero Tolerance holiday enforcement crackdown began Friday, December 14 and will run through Tuesday, January 1, 2008.
Research has proven that this high visibility enforcement coupled with focused media attention, results in reduced impaired driving crashes and fatalities. For members of Georgia’s Traffic Enforcement Networks, the 2007 “Over The Limit. Under Arrest.” Campaign truly represents a milestone in highway safety.
For more information about the Operation Zero Tolerance campaign, visit the GOHS website at www.gahighwaysafety.org.