LETTER TO THE EDITOR — A recent St. George News article revealed disappointing news: 320 innocent lives were lost on Utah roads in 2021, the highest number in almost a decade. A fifth of those people died in tragic, completely preventable impaired driving crashes.
After decades of meaningful progress to reduce impaired driving, the rate of impaired drivers has risen significantly since 2019 – the first time in nearly 15 years. Beyond the fatalities, a concerning trend shows two-thirds of DUI arrests have involved impairment from drugs or a combination of drugs and alcohol. Without changing our habits, these numbers will continue to increase.
Over the past 30-years, Responsibility.org has been dedicated to helping parents and educators raise smart decision-makers when it comes to alcohol use, providing the tools to end drunk driving and all forms of impaired driving and encouraging the public to make smart alcohol choices.
Responsibility.org established the National Alliance to Stop Impaired Driving to address the challenge of multiple-substance impaired driving. By connecting with communities across the country, the collaboration will help end the damage caused by substance impairment on American families and communities.
As we begin a new year, we should all commit to ending impaired driving, advocating for impaired driving legislation in our respective states and helping others make responsible choices. To learn more and to get involved, sign up for email updates on NASID.org.
Together, we can eliminate impaired driving for good.
Submitted by DARRIN GRONDEL, Hurricane. Grondel is the vice president of traffic safety at Responsibility.org. He is a retired Washington State Highway Patrol Captain, State Highway Safety Office Director and a former Chairman of the Governor’s Highway Safety Association Board of Directors. Grondel currently lives in Hurricane, Utah, with his wife and three of their ten children.
Letters to the Editor are not the product of St. George News, its editors, staff or news contributors. The matters stated and opinions given are the responsibility of the person submitting them. They do not reflect the product or opinion of St. George News and are given only light edit for technical style and formatting.