To the Editor:

You only have one life. Do you want to spend it running from the police for drunk driving?

When I watch the news, all I see is drunk driving or someone died from drunk driving. For me, it was losing a family member.

My cousin Brigid died in a car crash from a drunk driver. She was 19 and I never got to meet her.

In 2006, there were 17,602 fatalities in alcohol-related crashes in the United States. This represents 41 percent of all motor-vehicle fatalities on our nation’s roads. Some 278,000-vehicle occupants were injured in alcohol-related crashes, which accounts for 11 percent of all injuries. Almost one-quarter of the drivers of passenger cars and light trucks in fatal crashes had a blood-alcohol content of .08 grams per deciliter; for motorcyclists it was 25 percent. Impaired driving is a serious problem in the United States.

 In order to increase the certainty and swiftness of the consequences of impaired driving, 41 states have passed “administrative license revocation” programs that result in an almost immediate licensing action for a suspected impaired driver whose BAC is at or above a specified concentration. Typically, an officer will confiscate the driver’s license and send it to the state licensing agency. The suspect is issued a temporary driver’s permit (typically good for 15 days) to allow the suspect due process, a right to an administrative hearing if he or she should so wish.

If only they did this back in 1999 when my cousin Brigid was alive. 

My cousin Brigid would have been a great person. OK, she got in the car and she had a drink or two but still she died from the man who was drunk.

When a driver is stopped, the officer will note not just the person’s answers but also look for cues of recent alcohol use — for example, a flushed face, red eyes, and slurred speech, odor of alcohol, or alcoholic containers or beverages in the vehicle.  If the officer develops a suspicion to pursue the investigation, the officer will typically request the driver to step out of the vehicle and request that the driver performs a series of field sobriety tests….

All this new research is really great; we are stopping a lot of DWI. But could we stop more accidents? You think you are all right, but are you? OK, you are all right but are the other people on the road all right?

Did you know that drunk drivers cause more than 17,000 deaths annually? This equates to 310 funerals each week or one death every 30 minutes.

Did you know that in New York State slightly more than 30 percent of the fatal crashes are alcohol related? There is also an injury every two minutes associated with drunk driving.

A driver suspected of impaired driving may be asked to submit to a breathalyzer test to determine the presence of alcohol or drugs in the body. About three in every 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives. Those drivers 21 to 24 years old are most likely to be intoxicated.

Always watch out for others. Do not be the one who is arrested. If so, this is what could happen: For a first DWI offense, a jail sentence up to one year, a $500 to $1,000 fine, plus fees, and a minimum six-month license suspension as well as alcohol treatment, restitution to victims, and community services. The penalties increase with repeat offenses….

So do you want to overdo it with alcohol? I do not think so. It just hurts your body. What do you get out of it? Really, come on, think about it.

Christopher Roy

Farnsworth Middle School

Guilderland