The Hall County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) and Georgia GOHS (Governor’s Office of Highway Safety) are asking everyone to make the holidays merry by deciding to never drive after drinking.
“Every holiday season we implore our community to heed the warnings, and we will continue until everyone gets the message,” Hall County Sheriff Gerald Couch said. “The solution to DUI-related arrests, injuries and deaths is so simple. If you choose to celebrate with alcohol, do not get behind the wheel.”
The HCSO and other law enforcement agencies around the state are joining forces for the annual “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign today through January 1.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were more than 4,500 people killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in the United States in the month of December from 2017 to 2021 and 1,013 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in the U.S. in December of 2021.
Federal crash data shows male drivers were four times more likely to be alcohol-impaired and involved in fatal traffic crashes than females in December 2021 and drivers ages 21-34 accounted for the highest percentage of alcohol-impaired drivers involved in fatal traffic crashes in the U.S. in the December 2021.
In Georgia, one out of four individuals killed in traffic crashes in December from 2017 to 2021 involved a driver whose blood alcohol content (BAC) was higher than the state’s legal limit of .08%. Seventy percent of the fatal alcohol-impaired driving crashes in the state in December during this five-year period involved one driver with a BAC that was more than twice the legal limit.