DUI death rate down last year
By Harold Morse
Star-BulletinHawaii follows a nationwide trend with fewer alcohol-related traffic deaths in 1998 than 1997, but there's room for improvement, Mothers Against Drunk Driving says.
"We too have the lowest ever, so that's good news, the lowest ever as far as fatalities, alcohol-related fatalities," said Theresa Paulette, MADD-Hawaii immediate past president.
Fifty-six alcohol-related fatalities were logged here in 1998 out of a total of 120 Hawaii traffic deaths.
"The low before was 59," Paulette said. "Our percentage is a little higher which is not good. ... We're above the national percentage. We're at 46.6 (percent)."
In 1997, Hawaii's number of alcohol-related traffic deaths as a percentage of total traffic deaths was lower, 44.9 percent.
Nationwide, alcohol-related traffic fatalities accounted for 38.4 percent of 41,471 traffic deaths last year. That figure was 38.5 percent in 1997.
The number of alcohol-related traffic deaths nationwide dropped to 15,935 last year, the lowest level in the 17 years the government has been keeping the statistic. The figure dropped 1.5 percent nationwide from 1997, when alcohol was involved in 16,189 crash deaths.
In 1983, Hawaii recorded 90 alcohol-related traffic deaths out of 139 total fatalities. The percentage of alcohol-related traffic deaths of the total was 64.7 percent that year.
Nationwide, young people killed in alcohol-related crashes also dropped to a record low -- nine per 100,000 in 1998, from 10 per 100,000 in 1997.
"We just want to continue to see this steady decline and hope to reach our goal of no more than 40 alcohol-related traffic deaths (in Hawaii) by the year 2005," Paulette said. "We've just got to keep educating people."
On Sept. 2, 1992, her son, Brian, 15, was hit and killed by a driver who had been been arrested six times for drunken driving.
