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News Specialist Jed Boal reporting
Law enforcement agencies across the nation will scour the streets for drunken drivers during the extended holiday season.
According to a new national report, that type of crackdown has made a dent in the problem, and given Utah the lowest rate of drunken driving fatalities.
Every day four to five people are either injured or killed in the state of Utah in an alcohol-related crash -- that impacts 1700 families.
That's a big problem. But there's been a lot of improvement in two decades.
Drunken driving deaths have declined in Utah during the past two decades, according to a report released today by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The report also shows Utah had the lowest rate of drunken driving fatalities in the nation last year.
Colonel Claron Brenchley has been with the Utah Highway Patrol for nearly 30 years. He says DUI enforcement gained momentum in the 1980s and continues today.
"Any alcohol-related deaths are too many, and we genuinely feel that is something we can have an affect on," Brenchley says.
Brenchley says Utah has been a national leader in lowering legal blood alcohol levels and implementing stiffer laws and standardized field sobriety tests.
Greater public awareness and citizens campaigns against drunken driving have also had an impact.
Twenty years ago there were 120 alcohol related deaths in Utah. Last year, there were fewer than 70 -- a 74 percent drop in the fatality rate.
In Utah today, 23 percent of all highway deaths are alcohol related, compared to 41 percent nationwide.
"The public perception started to change about that time that it wasn't as socially acceptable to drink and drive and go out and party," Brenchley says.
Part of these results are cultural. Utahns just don't drink as much as those in other states.
But nationally, after years of improvement, alcohol related crashes are on the rise again.
That's why citizens groups like Freeway Watch keep up the pressure.
Rosalyn Richardson's husband suffered a traumatic brain injury four years ago when a drunken driver plowed into his motorcycle at a stop light.
"Even though we're better than the rest of the country, we still have too many. One is too many. You ask the family that is affected. That's too many," Richardson says.
