Some people are afraid to fly in jets. From time to time when they mention such thoughts, someone will usually pipe up with a remembered statistic that more people die on the roads than in the planes, so it’s actually safer to fly than to drive your car. It probably doesn’t really comfort them very much to hear this.
So let’s talk about our highways here in North Dakota, and hey, there is cause for happiness. There have been just under half as many deaths due to alcohol-related traffic crashes so far in the first 9 months of 2011 than there were in the same time frame in 2010. In other words, only 14 have died this year as opposed to 30 last year.
In the entire year of 2010 there were 55 alcohol-related fatalities out of 105 total such deaths.
The Bismarck Police Lieutenant Steve Kilde has some ideas as to why the number has so happily been reduced. Credit can be given to the Department of Transportation and the law enforcement agencies for the formation of regional DUI Task Forces. These task forces conducted saturation patrols last October in the late hours of the day when the most alcohol-related crashes usually occur. As a result, a number of people were pulled off of the road and charged with DUI before any damage could take place. Still others, we might assume, didn’t want to risk getting caught by the increased number of police on duty.
During the past decade, our state has placed in the top ten of states for alcohol-related deaths. It’s so encouraging to see some positive progress.
In order to have more officers on duty during those “saturation” hours, the government has to pay out some overtime to the approximately 20% more officers that are on duty those nights and weekends. The DOT got some grant money from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to help to pay for this.
It is only truthful to point out that the total number of fatalities from crashes has not gone down, and in fact has increased by 3 thus far this year. A number of these came from people rolling their cars over and not wearing seatbelts, and thus being ejected from the vehicle. While that is still very unfortunate, it is good to note that at least the number of alcohol-related ones have diminished.
