The Memorial Day holiday weekend is the unofficial start of summer, with graduation parties, backyard barbecues and beach outings with families and friends.
It’s also prime time for DUI enforcement by police, who hope to deter people from driving impaired and to get inebriated drivers off the road before a collision occurs.
“We’re having roadblocks and roving patrols for drunken drivers for the upcoming weekend, mainly for the graduation parties and such,” Sgt. Robert Pauole, who heads the Hawaii Police Department’s Traffic Services Section, said Thursday. “The graduation celebration period is not just this weekend. It extends to the next several weekends.”
Through Sunday, Big Island police had made 372 DUI arrests this year, compared to 485 at the same time last year, a decrease of 23.3 percent.
Major traffic collisions, those with $3,000 or more in damages, also are down this year, with 556 through Sunday compared to 624 at the same time last year, a decrease of 10.9 percent.
The good news does not extend to traffic fatalities, however. There have been nine official traffic fatalities this year, compared to six during the same period last year, an increase of 50 percent.
The official fatality total so far this year is only two fewer than the 11 fatalities that occurred on Big Island roads in 2014, the lowest yearly count in recent memory.
Pauole pointed out that there have been two collisions this year with multiple fatalities, while there were none last year.
“We had the one in Kona where the three young kids died (on Valentine’s Day), and we had the one maybe two weeks ago (in Kona) with a motorcycle, where two people died,” he said. “Every time you have a crash that takes more than one life, our fatality rate increases drastically.
“You look at the years when we’ve had really high numbers of fatalities, those were the years we had multiples.”
To date, four of this year’s fatalities have been linked to impaired driving — one to drugs and three to a combination of drugs and alcohol.
Pauole said police “want to get parents involved” in seeing to it their teenagers aren’t drinking or driving or riding in a car with an impaired driver.
“The parents are the ones that can … ensure that the young people are not drinking and driving, or offer a ride. Hopefully, kids are going to the non-alcoholic parties and not drinking and driving. Because, unfortunately, we’ll have the younger age groups drinking and driving, and they are the more inexperienced drivers. That will make it more dangerous out there.”
In addition to DUI checkpoints, police have increased enforcement this month of seat belt and child passenger restraint checkpoints as part of the “Click It or Ticket” national campaign. Pauole noted fines for not using seat belts are $102, and under the law, drivers are legally responsible for passengers who aren’t buckled up.
“So if you’re the driver, and you have three passengers, plus yourself, not wearing a seat belt, you’re looking at $400 in fines,” he said.
“We want the public to use their seat belts all the time. There’s a 45 percent (greater) chance that you will survive a crash by just using your seat belt. It’s like going to Vegas. One machine says there’s a 45 percent greater chance (of winning) if you play this one. So which one are you going to play? The statistics are there. So buckle up, and make sure your children are properly restrained.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
