GILROY
– Workplaces and families will start hosting holiday parties
this weekend, and the holiday cheer will be in many forms: verbal,
visual and liquid.
GILROY – Workplaces and families will start hosting holiday parties this weekend, and the holiday cheer will be in many forms: verbal, visual and liquid.
Alcoholic beverages are often a staple of these get-togethers, which is perfectly legal so long as drinkers are 21 or older. The biggest danger comes if the drinkers get behind the wheel to go home.
The Gilroy and Morgan Hill police departments will kick off their campaigns against drinking and driving next weekend, but this weekend is when many holiday celebrations begin.
“This is when the deaths happen,” said Laura Plum, who manages the Bay Area chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in San Jose. “Forty percent of all (nationwide, alcohol-related highway) fatalities happen during the holidays: … Thanksgiving to New Year’s, Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day.”
The good news is that in 2002, there were no alcohol-related deaths on South Valley highways between the day before Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Still, who wants to start a bad trend?
In California in 2002, there were 148 alcohol-related deaths between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, according to MADD. In the U.S., there were 2,053.
“That’s a lot of people to lose in a matter of (less than) 40 days,” Plum said.
“The $20 or $30 you pay for a cab are worth it if you think about how you could kill yourself or someone else.”
Death aside, there are other negative consequences of drinking and driving, not least of which is the possibility of a driving-under-the-influence arrest. Local CHP officers made 74 DUI arrests during the 2002 Thanksgiving-to-New Year’s Eve holiday season, an average of about two a day. Gilroy police and sheriff’s deputies added dozens more, although their DUIs in the 20 days between Dec. 13 and Jan. 1 – during the annual “Avoid the 13” anti-drunk driving campaign – were half what they had been in 2001.
For most people, two drinks in less than an hour will put their blood-alcohol content at or above the legal limit of .08 percent. A 12-ounce beer, an average glass of wine and a shot of hard liquor all count as a drink.
It takes the average human body about an hour to get over the effects of one drink, Plum said, so unless you weigh very little, haven’t eaten or are on medication, you should be under the legal limit if you don’t have more than one drink per hour.
But even with a BAC as low as .02 percent, alcohol hurts one’s driving ability. The probability of a crash begins to increase significantly at .05 percent and climbs rapidly after .08 percent, according to a 2000 study by Zador, Krawchuk and Voas.
Virtually all drivers, even experienced drinkers, are significantly impaired at .08 BAC, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration studies from 2003.
Locally, Gilroy police will kick off the Avoid the 13 campaign on Dec. 13 with an educational event from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Wal-Mart on 7900 Arroyo Circle. MADD will provide a car wrecked in a drunk-driving crash to give people a visual jolt regarding the effects of DUI.
There are now 15 police agencies in the Avoid the 13 campaign. Locally, officers from Gilroy, Morgan Hill, the Sheriff’s Department and CHP are expected to put extra officers on the roads and run checkpoints in the area to catch drunk drivers.
Alcohol-related highway deaths nationwide have dropped during the past 20 years. While the number of fatalities from car accidents didn’t change much from 1982 to 2002, the percentage of those in which alcohol was involved dropped consistently, from 60 percent in 1982 to 41 percent in 2002.
Nevertheless, the holidays – which are supposed to be joyful – are not so for families of those killed in drunk-driving accidents. Plum knows that first-hand.
“My brother was killed when I was 13,” Plum said. “He was 18.”
It was 1975, Laura’s brother was in the Air Force, and he was giving a visiting friend a tour of the base when a drunk driver made a blind pass on a hill and hit their car head-on. Both her brother and his friend died. The responsible airman was discharged.
For Plum, it was a hard time with little support outside of her family.
“There was no MADD,” she said. “There were no resources for anybody. So things have changed a lot.”
MADD educates the public about the dangers of drinking and driving, advocates for tougher DUI standards and provides free support services to victims of DUI. The nonprofit organization relies entirely on donations, which have dropped 50 percent over the last three years, according to Plum.
For more information about MADD, call the Bay Area chapter toll-free at (800) 426-6233 or log onto www.madd.org. For more information about the Avoid the 13 event at Wal-Mart in Gilroy, call Gilroy police Community Service Officer Rachel Muñoz at 846-0524.
Free or discount rides for drinkers
Bracco’s Towing and Transport offers free rides from Dec. 22 through Jan. 1. ~ 847-5766.
South Valley Cab will offer $2 off to intoxicated people during the holidays. ~ 776-3234 or toll free (888) 550-2555
Other taxicab companies:
Golden Taxi ~ 846-6666
Union Taxi Co. ~ 846-9922
Yellow Cab Co. ~ 842-6333
