Drunk Drivers on Police Officers’ Radar Tonight

Tonight, as New Year’s Eve revelers slip in and out of the bars or rush home for a midnight kiss, Los Angeles Police Department traffic Officer Mitch Norling will ride his motorcycle up and down Western Avenue, scanning drivers for signs of drunkenness.

He ticks off the telltale signs: sliding through a red light, driving without headlights on, weaving in and out of traffic, speeding.

On New Year’s Eve a few years ago, Norling helped pick up the pieces after a drunk driver rammed a minivan with a family inside. Two children were badly injured.

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are the most dangerous days of the year when it comes to alcohol-related collisions, according to a recent study by the Automobile Club of Southern California. Drivers and passengers on those days are 148% more likely to be killed or injured in a drunk driving crash than on other days.

This year, the work of Norling and his law enforcement colleagues around the state will have an extra edge: For five straight years, deaths in alcohol-related automobile collisions have gone up in California, according to state records, rising 26% from 1998 to 2003. Last year, 1,445 people in California died in drunk driving crashes; the 271 deaths in Los Angeles County represented a 43% increase since 1998.

“We’re alarmed,� said Tom Marshall, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

“There was a whole bunch of publicity during the ‘80s and the deaths went down. In the ‘90s it kind of flattened out,� he said. “Then, just in the last five years, they’re starting to inch up.�

But for the general public, several experts said, warnings about drunk driving have become old news -- just more blah-blah-blah about a problem most think has been largely addressed.

“The public’s attention has been diverted to other things,� said Wendy Hamilton, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the organization that spearheaded the anti-drunk driving efforts that started in the 1980s. “We need to reengage.�

With an influx of immigrants and a new generation of young drivers, policymakers must start over in educating the public about drunk driving -- and step up funding for enforcement, she and others said.

This year, for the first time, the state assigned five agencies to a coordinated campaign to keep drunk motorists from driving during the Christmas and New Year’s holiday weekends: CHP, the Office of Traffic Safety and the departments of Motor Vehicles, Alcoholic Beverage Control and Transportation.

Getting drunk drivers off the roads “is sort of like fighting cockroaches,� said CHP spokesman Marshall. “You spray and you get rid of them, and the next thing you know, they’re coming back again. It’s a never-ending effort.�

Nationwide, drunk driving deaths also have been generally on the rise -- increasing steadily since 1999 before a small drop of 2.9% last year. Overall, 17,013 died in the United States in alcohol-related crashes in 2003. The numbers are not yet in for this year.

In California, it is illegal to drive with a blood-alcohol content level of 0.08% or more. That’s about four drinks in an hour on an empty stomach for a 170-pound man, or three drinks in an hour for a 137-pound woman, according to MADD. All other states have the same rule except for Minnesota, where it is to take effect in August.

For young drivers, the standards are even stricter: Studies show that teenagers, because of their inexperience and still-developing reflexes, are impaired after just one or two drinks. Even if they don’t meet the legal definition of drunk, drivers who are under the age of 21 will have their licenses suspended in California if they are caught with any alcohol in their bodies.

But simply tightening the legal definition has not been enough, safety advocates said.

Even after adjusting for California’s population increases, deaths are up significantly in the state, according to the Office of Traffic Safety. Alcohol-related deaths per vehicle-mile traveled in California rose 10% from 1999 to 2002, the most recent year for which those statistics have been calculated.

After taking population increases into account, the highest increase in alcohol-related fatalities in the state has been among teenage drivers, according to Steven Bloch, a researcher for the Southern California auto club. Nationally, drivers between the ages of 15 and 20 are involved in alcohol-related crashes more often than members of any other age group, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

According to research done by the federal government and MADD, the most effective way to combat drunk driving is to enact highly visible enforcement efforts, such as sobriety checkpoints, followed by stiff penalties for drivers who break the rules.

But local officials complain that since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, their resources have been increasingly tied up with homeland security.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration asked all state agencies with an interest in alcohol regulation or motor vehicle safety to step up their enforcement efforts over the Christmas and New Year holiday weekends.

For example, the CHP plans to deploy 189 special speed enforcement details, 207 roving DUI task forces and 81 radar trailers across the state this weekend.

Many of the department’s normally office-bound brass will be in patrol cars and on motorcycles conducting sweeps, and officers will work 12-hour shifts over the holiday weekend, CHP Commissioner Mike Brown said in a news release.

In Los Angeles, Officer Norling will be trying to prevent alcohol-related traffic accidents as he cruises the neighborhood near his Wilshire Division station on his motorcycle or, if it is raining, in a patrol car.

Drunk drivers, he said, nearly always give themselves away -- even those who think they can pull it off.

After a couple of drinks, “senses are not as sharp, reactions are slower,� Norling said. “You can tell.�