Posted on: Sunday, August 29, 2004

EDITORIAL
Are we seeing a new drunken-driver trend?

A spike in the number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities in Hawai'i in 2003 should spur a very careful review of the community's defenses against drunken driving.

Have some of them slipped, as a result perhaps of budget cuts or complacency? Have advertising and education efforts diminished? Have police DUI checkpoints and other enforcement measures been neglected? Are judges being too lenient on offenders?

Any motor vehicle fatality is one too many, of course, but the statistical increase in the state's alcohol-related deaths, from 47 in 2002 to 72 the following year, could as easily be explained by an unusual number of multi-victim accidents, or even as a random variation, as by an abrupt increase in the number of drunk drivers.

Indeed, the 2003 spike may prove to be the exception to what otherwise has been a fairly steady trend over the past decade toward fewer alcohol-related deaths.

We'd certainly hate to find that we're at the beginning of a dangerous new spate of driver irresponsibility.

While some might argue that it's the driver's business if he wraps his car around a light pole and kills himself in the process, unfortunately this deviant behavior takes an alarming toll among innocent bystanders.

For now, we urge a renewed commitment by all drivers to know when to say when, to call a taxi when in doubt, and to take the keys from friends who don't know better.