Drunken drivers do not discriminate.
They will drive day or night.
They are more often male than female, but the number of women driving under the influence is on the rise.
They can be young, middle-aged or old, but the group most likely to be involved in an alcohol-impaired fatal crash are men and women in the 21-24 age range.
During the 2006 holiday season, alcohol was a factor in almost 37 percent of the fatal crashes with drivers this age. Compare that to drivers 44-54, where 20 percent of the fatal accidents involved alcohol.
While drivers 21-24 constituted 11 percent of all drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2007, they made up 18 percent of all alcohol-impaired drivers involved in fatal crashes.
December is National Drunk & Drugged Driving Prevention Month and the Tennessee Highway Patrol, with assistance from other agencies, will staff more than 100 sobriety and driver’s license checkpoints through New Year’s Day.
In Shelby County, the Highway Patrol and the Sheriff’s Office will work together.
From her own experience stopping impaired drivers, Highway Patrol Sgt. Sadie Chatman expects the DUI citations to support the national statistics and skew younger.
Ignorance, not arrogance, she says, is usually the culprit when young adults drive drunk.
“There’s a possibility it has something to do with pride,” the sergeant said. “But they really think they’re OK. They’re still having a good time. They can laugh, they know each other’s name. They know what road they’re on.
“They think they’re in control.”
Regardless of their age, Sgt. Michael Pope, field commander for the Shelby County Sheriff Office’s DUI unit, said offenders often possess an air of invincibility or an attitude of entitlement.
“They just think they’ll never get caught, ‘I can make it down the street, I haven’t had that much,’” Pope said.
Recently, a 32-year-old woman drove into the back of a deputy’s car. Pope said she tried every tactic imaginable to get out of the DUI, including being “seductive.”
Between 2004 and 2008 in Tennessee, impaired women drivers involved in fatal crashes increased by 4.7 percent.
And while the odds say there’s a greater chance that such a crash would occur at night, you never know.
Trooper Sherron recently arrested a woman for DUI at midday. She was on her way to work at a big-box store. Her strategy with him: use the hour to her advantage.
“At 12 o’clock, you think I’m drunk?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sherron said.
Sgt. Chatman says law enforcement has noticed one encouraging sign the last few years — more adults who decide to drink also deciding to “stay over” after a private house party or at a hotel.
But others still believe that if stopped on the road they can use this season of giving and good cheer to avoid a DUI and its punishments.
And those penalties for a first offense include 48 hours to 11 months and 29 days in jail, a fine up to $1,500 and total expenditures — including towing, bail, attorney and court costs — that approach $5,000.
“A lot of times they think the officer will let them go because it’s Christmas,” Sgt. Pope said. “Zero tolerance. If you’re caught, it will effect a consequence.
“No breaks for Christmas.”
Hard facts about drunken driving
In 2008, about one-third of all fatal crashes involved alcohol-impaired drivers.
Nation
37,261 total fatalities
11,773 alcohol-impaired driving fatalities
32 percent involved alcohol-impaired drivers
Tennessee
1,035 total fatalities
327 alcohol-impaired fatalities
32 percent involved alcohol-impaired drivers
Mississippi
783 total fatalities
266 alcohol-impaired fatalities
34 percent involved alcohol-impaired drivers
Arkansas
600 total fatalities
171 alcohol-impaired fatalities
28 percent involved alcohol-impaired drivers
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis
Taken from the Commercial Appeal, December 24th Article