Super Bowl Sunday One of Deadliest Drunk Driving Days

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 -- The National Commission Against Drunk Driving (NCADD) today warned that alcohol-related traffic deaths typically rise sharply on Super Bowl Sunday, and urged Americans to take extra precautions to ensure that the day is safe and sober.

Super Bowl Sunday is one of the single most deadly days on America's roads due to drunk driving, matched only by New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day. On the average day, 44 people die in alcohol-related traffic crashes, accounting for 40 percent of highway deaths. However, over the past six Super Bowl Sundays, an average of 59 people were killed in alcohol crashes, constituting 54 percent of highway deaths that day. In 2000, 62 people were killed in alcohol-related traffic crashes on Super Bowl Sunday, accounting for more than 59 percent of all road deaths that day.

Since the mid-1990s, nearly 16,000 Americans have been killed and more than 700,000 injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes annually. In 2000, U.S. drunk driving deaths increased for the first time in five years. ``It is time to renew the war on drunk driving. The front lines can be found among our own circle of family and friends,'' said John V. Moulden, President of the NCADD. ``The fact is, drunk driving is the most frequently committed violent crime in our country, but it's 100 percent preventable.''

Last November, the NCADD conducted a two-day ``National Town Hall Meeting on Drunk Driving in America'' which uncovered many alarming dimensions of the drunk driving problem, and collected recommendations from leading highway safety experts, law enforcement officials, judges, treatment specialists, and legislators, to address it.

NCADD today released the main recommendations from that ``Town Hall Meeting'' which can be found at www.ncadd.org . Among the highlights, NCADD is calling for renewed political leadership, the use of high-tech devices by police and judges to catch and control drunk drivers, stricter enforcement of the 21 drinking age law, and dedicated funding from drunk driver fines to combat the problem.

This Sunday, NCADD urges Super Bowl party hosts and party-goers to take personal responsibility to prevent drunk driving tragedies by, for instance, designating non-drinking drivers, offering non-alcohol beverage options, cutting off alcohol after the third quarter, providing plenty of high-protein foods, and taking away the keys of those who have had too much to drive safely.