A New Year's Resolution for Safer Streets
As a new year begins, people across the country are making resolutions to do a few things differently. Hopefully for at least 4,500 Arizonans, one resolution will be to stop driving while impaired.
Four thousand five hundred is the number of Arizona residents who were arrested for DUI since Thanksgiving. That's almost a 2000 person increase since the holiday season of 2008. The Associated Press reported, arrests for the entire year numbered above 14,000: a 3,500 increase since 2008.
These rising numbers reveal two trends. The first is the good news that increased enforcement has taken more unsafe drivers off the road. Hopefully this will inspire them and others to stay sober behind the wheel.
But, the second trend is of a large number of drivers ignoring the potential consequences of impaired driving and choosing to put others at risk. Preventable injuries to motorists and motorcyclists are caused each week when someone makes the negligent decision to reach for the keys when buzzed or drunk.
We can only hope that public awareness and deterrence can begin to lower number of impaired drivers and the injuries they cause. Perhaps this holiday's spike in enforcement will help spread the message and keep Arizona's drivers a little safer in 2010.
