New Year’s Day Car Crashes-Most Dangerous Time To Be On The Road

Happy 2018 from Aronfeld Trial Lawyers, and for those of us with newly minted teenage drivers in our families (like mine), I have an important safety warning: keep your kids and any of your loved ones off the roads on New Year’s Eve after midnight and until the following morning. Here is why; compared to an average Saturday night, the 12-hour window between 6 p.m. on Dec. 31 and 6 a.m. on Jan. 1 has 71% more crashes where alcohol or drugs are listed as a contributing factor… that’s terrifying!

According to statistics published by the Centers for Disease Control; New Year’s Eve is the most dangerous time to be on the road for anyone driving or even walking because nearly half of all fatal New Year’s Day car crashes involve drivers who are drunk. Drunk driving is typically defined as having a blood-alcohol content of at least 0.08. The combination of drinking and driving and late night celebrations make New Year’s Eve the worst day of the year for deadly crashes involving drunk drivers.((The second and third worst days are the Fourth of July and St. Patrick’s Day respectively.)) And it’s no safer for pedestrians; as New Year’s Eve is also the deadliest day to simply try to cross a street. Each year an average of 22 Americans die getting hit by drunk drivers while just walking. And the numbers are probably higher because many crashes related to New Year’s Eve are actually recorded on January 1 rather than December 31.

In the United States, traffic crashes are still the leading cause of death for ages 1 through 34 years. ((The U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) reports that 40% of traffic-related deaths during Christmas and New Year’s Eve — a 12% increase over the rest of the month of December.)) The good news is that the number of drunk driving-related accidents are on the decline. However, despite this trend, sadly, alcohol-involved driving remains a critical and preventable public health problem and 150 people are anticipated to die in preventable traffic-related accidents this New Years Eve.

Aronfeld Trial Lawyers, your Miami auto accident lawyers, have some suggestions how to keep you and your family safe this New Years Eve:

Use Your Seatbelt- even if you are a passenger, even if you are in the back seat. Hard to imagine but the US crash death rate was more than twice the average of other high-income countries. In fact, the US, front seat belt use was lower than in most other countries.
Make sure children are always properly buckled in the back seat in a car seat, booster seat or seat belt, whichever is appropriate for their age, height, and weight.
Obey speed limits.
Drive without distractions (such as using a cell phone, texting, swiping on Tinder or Snapchat).
Don’t drink and drive. It is never, ever okay to drink and drive under any circumstances.

If you are going to drink on New Year’s Eve, arrange to have someone do the driving for you. If you have not yet tried UBER, Aronfeld Trial Lawyers has a special gift for you. Simply download the UBER app and use this promo code – spencera110 – to get $% discount on each of your first 4 rides. It seems like common sense; you will be less tempted to drink and drive if you have an easier and safer way to get home after celebrating New Year’s Eve. And a recent independent study confirmed that in four boroughs of New York City, excluding Staten Island, there has been a 25 to 35% reduction in alcohol-related car accidents in towns with Uber when compared to other places where the ride-hailing app doesn’t yet work.

We wish you and your family a healthy, happy and safe New Year’s Eve. Please download the app, please don’t drink and drive and please have fun!