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DUI deaths dropped 37 percent in D.C. last year
Washington DC -
The number of drunk driving related fatalities in the District of Columbia dropped 37 percent between 2005 and 2006, the biggest percentage decrease in the country, according to statistics released Monday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In Montgomery and Prince William counties, however, the number of drunken driving deaths more than doubled. NHTSA officials released the new statistics Monday as they announced checkpoints and increased patrols for impaired drivers around the upcoming Labor Day weekend. The national enforcement campaign started Aug. 14 and runs through Sept. 3. Metropolitan Police spokeswoman Traci Hughes attributed the District's decreases to its public outreach on drunken driving. There were 19 fatalities in the District in 2005 where a driver with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 or more was involved. In 2006, there were 12. "Its hard to draw conclusions from one year to another because the numbers are so small," said Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington. "Overall, (nationally) it's shameful we still have this many fatalities." Nationally, there were 13,470 deaths in 2006 involving drivers with blood alcohol content levels of 0.08 or higher, down from 13,582 deaths in 2005. In both Montgomery and Prince William counties, though, the numbers were up substantially. There were nine Montgomery County deaths in 2005 and 20 in '06. In Prince William, there were seven deaths in 2005 and 17 last year. Arlington, Fairfax and Prince George's, meanwhile, saw decreases in drunken driving fatalities. The most effective method of preventing drunken driving is highly publicized checkpoints, Rader said. But this deterrent isn't used often enough, he said. "There's no way you can arrest every impaired driver," Rader said. "The goal should be deterrence." When the institute studied the use of checkpoints in 2001, it found that only 11 states used the checkpoints on a weekly basis, Rader said. |
