For many decades now, advocacy groups, law enforcement agencies and others have worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the dangers of driving after consuming alcohol. Sadly, there are a lot of people in New Jersey who prefer to ignore these messages and instead make negligent and selfish choices with no regard for the safety or feelings of others.
According to records from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, New Jersey lost 125 lives at the hands of drunk drivers in 2017. That represented one out of every five vehicular fatalities in the state that year. The previous year, 137 people were killed in motor vehicle accidents in which alcohol was identified as a contributing factor. That was 30 more than in 2015 when 107 such deaths were recorded.
Residents today continue to face serious risks due to impaired drivers. One recent example can be seen in an accident that claimed the life of a 19-year-old Massachusetts Institute of Technology student who had recently returned home to New Jersey for the summer. ABC7 New York reported that she and her sister, who was four years younger than she, were driving in Old Bridge when another vehicle crossed the center line and hit their vehicle. The other driver ran away but was later apprehended.
New York Daily News reported on how one family’s holiday weekend turned tragic when an underage drunk driver hit their vehicle over Memorial Day weekend, killing a four-year-old girl, her mother and her grandmother. The family was en route to Niagara Falls from New Jersey at the time of the accident.