The numbers run counter to a nationwide trend in which alcohol-related deaths overall declined by almost 3 percent. Twenty-eight states showed declines in alcohol-related fatalities; only six, including Hawai'i, had double-digit increases.

"It's awful. It doesn't just sound bad — it is really bad," said Carol McNamee, spokeswoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving-Hawai'i. "It's very distressing."

McNamee said the Hawai'i figures included an unusually large number of multiple-death fatalities involving 18- to 35-year-old men.

"We had nine crashes that caused a total of 24 fatalities," she said. "That's very unusual. That tells me a lot of people, especially young people, are getting into cars with impaired drivers, and that's a problem."

Alcohol-related traffic fatalities in the state generally have been dropping since 1982, when 99 people were killed. The number reached an all-time low of 43 in 2000, but has been increasing since then.

To respond to the increase, police in all four counties plan to change the way they conduct sobriety check points starting in October, said Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa.

Under the new "52/12" plan, each county police department will conduct at least one sobriety check point each week. In the past, most sobriety check points have been concentrated around the Christmas season and other holiday weekends, Ishikawa said.

"Maybe it's gotten to the point where people know when to expect the check points," he said. "This is an attempt to make things a little more unpredictable."

Other states that have tried the year-round sobriety check points have shown a sharp drop in alcohol-related accidents, he said.

Nationally, officials credited a federally financed $5 million campaign using ads and enforcement efforts in 13 targeted states with helping to reduce alcohol-related deaths. Drunken-driving deaths in states where the money was spent fell an average of 6.7 percent.

Officials hope to expand the program next year, but are waiting to see if money is included for it in final federal transportation financing before Congress.

Nationally, the number of drunken-driving deaths totaled 17,013 last year, about 3 percent fewer than the previous year.

Hawai'i police are planning to join others across the country in an end of summer/Labor Day "You Drink & Drive. You Lose" crackdown, Ishikawa said.

The campaign has local police combining high-visibility enforcement efforts in the next three weeks with more than $14 million in national and state advertising to stop impaired driving, he said.

MADD officials in Hawai'i said they were starting their own media blitz about its Victim Support Services program, which offers free support and advocacy services to injured victims and to family and friends of those killed by drunken drivers.

McNamee said the sharp increase in fatalities was a one-time anomaly, made to look even worse because the percentages are based on a relatively low number of total deaths compared with other states.

But "even if it is a one-time thing because we're a small state, there's no excuse," McNamee said. "The changes are huge anyway you look at it."