LIMA — The holiday season culminates on Saturday night with New Year’s Eve, a night associated with stylish late-night gatherings, parties and Champagne toasts. It’s also the culmination of a holiday travel season that has safety advocates warning party-goers about the dangers of driving while impaired and urging people to take steps now to make New Year’s Eve transportation plans.
“We’ll have extra patrols out, looking for traffic violations, impaired drivers, excessive speed,” said Allen County Chief Deputy Sheriff Jeff Everett. “We’d like to discourage people from being out there who shouldn’t be driving.”
Everett said he doesn’t think there will be more drunk driving as a result of New Year’s Eve falling on a Saturday night. “We do this every year,” he said of the impaired driving crackdown.
The risk, though, may be higher this New Year’s Eve because of more motor vehicle activity. The auto club AAA has predicted a record number of year-end holiday travelers between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2. In Ohio alone, some 4.2 million people are expected to hit the roads.
“The year-end holiday travel period spans two holidays and two weekends, so New Year’s Eve is definitely a well-traveled holiday,” said Kimberly Schwind, spokeswoman for AAA Ohio Auto club. “Most people will be at their destinations on New Year’s Eve, so it’s going to be more local traffic” as people head out to bars, restaurants, clubs and friends’ homes for year-end countdown festivities, she said.
“If we catch you driving impaired, we will arrest you. No exceptions, no excuses,” said Lt. David Brown, Lima Post Commander of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, in a statement. “We want everyone to play it safe.”
Alcohol-impaired driving remains a significant traffic safety concern, with an average of one alcohol-impaired driving fatality occuring every 52 minutes in 2013, according to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration.
In Allen County, 14 people have died so far this year in a traffic crash, according to the Lima-Allen County Safe Community Coalition, which includes the Lima Police Department, the Allen County Sheriff’s Office, the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Lima-Allen County Regional Planning Commission. That’s nearly double the eight traffic fatalities recorded in 2015.
Although local officials did not indicate the causes of those crashes, they said the underlying reason for “many of these deaths” was impaired driving, speed and failure to use seat belts.
Most people know that drinking and driving don’t mix. But a “do as I say, not as I do” mentality often prevails.
According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 97.1 percent of motorists find it “unacceptable” for a driver to get behind the wheel when they’ve had too much to drink. Yet, 13.4 percent — one in eight drivers surveyed — admitted to driving at least once in the last year when they thought their blood alcohol level might have been close to, or over, the legal limit.
“Alcohol is involved in a lot of these celebrations,” said AAA Ohio’s Schwind. “So it’s tempting and easy to go out to a party or a bar, have a few drinks and get behind the wheel. But it puts you and other road users at risk, so just don’t do it.”
Schwind said total abstinence is often the best bet, as alcohol’s effects vary depending on the type of alcohol consumed, how quickly it’s consumed and the physiology of the drinker.
“It’s different for everyone. For some, one drink or two is too much. Some, it’s a little more,” she said. In Ohio, a .08 blood alcohol level is the legal limit, but “even at .05, you can be impaired,” noted Schwind. That, according to some estimates, could be as little as one glass of wine in an hour for a 100-pound woman and two beers in an hour for a 160-pound man.
“It doesn’t take much,” said Schwind.
Complicating matters is the fact that alcohol depresses the nervous system and impairs judgment. It’s why safety advocates encourage partygoers to make plans ahead of heading out for the evening.
“Don’t put yourself in a situation where you’ve had too much to drink and don’t know how to get home,” said Schwind. “Have someone you trust to stay sober, call a cab or stay at the place where you’re partying.”
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