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Teens Help Drive Anti-DUI Message Home; December is Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month

1 December 1998

Teens Help Drive Anti-DUI Message Home; December is Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month


    SACRAMENTO, Calif.--Dec. 1, 1998--Teenagers across the state will join the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), law enforcement agencies and community organizations to promote California's Drunk and Drugged Driving (3D) Prevention Month this December.
    The annual campaign is designed to curtail the tragedy associated with impaired driving during the holiday season by attracting attention to the dangers and consequences associated with drunk driving.
    This year's 3D Month focus will be on under-aged drinking and driving. Last year the OTS released a study predicting a 33.5 percent increase in the youth population during the next 10 years and a corresponding 24 percent increase in the number of teen-involved drunk driving crashes. Due to these findings, and because teens are already over-represented in alcohol-related collisions, efforts for this year's campaign will incorporate a special focus on under-aged drinking and driving.
    Last year 117 California teens, 15-19 years of age, were killed and 3,698 more were injured in alcohol-related crashes. Statewide, 1,100 people were killed and more than 31,189 were injured due to drunk driving collisions.
    "We are now concentrating our efforts on teens," said OTS Director Arthur Anderson, "Unfortunately, teens involved in motor vehicle crashes are at fault 66 percent of the time. Take the 'inexperience' factor and combine it with alcohol usage and we have a very deadly combination."
    California's signature event for 3D Month, "Lights on for Life," a one day observance in which law enforcement officers drive with their headlights on all day in remembrance of those individuals killed and injured in alcohol-involved crashes will be held on Friday, Dec. 18. For more information on 3-D Month or "Lights on for Life," call 916/444-8014 or visit the OTS web site at http://www.ots.org/ots.