A lot of people travel on the holidays. Kentucky’s highways fill up with people driving in or out of state for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Then there are those going to local parties and family dinners.
Add it all up, and it may be no surprise that car accidents go up around the holidays. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently announced that this is a major safety problem every year in this country. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) agrees. The state agency says that drunk driving is an especially bad problem every holiday season. Since 2017, KYTC has counted more than 500 crashes caused by drunk or drugged drivers around the holidays. Thirteen people were killed and 244 were injured.
One piece of good news is that, as of mid-December, the total number of holiday-season wrecks in 2022 was lower than the previous year. Of course, that figure came before the Christmas and New Year’s three-day weekends, so it remains to be seen if this will turn out to be a less dangerous holiday season than usual.
No excuses for a DUI car wreck
Some major auto accidents are unavoidable. But drunk driving wrecks never are. Nobody has to drink and drive, and everyone knows how risky it is. When someone chooses to do it anyway and kills or severely injures somebody in a crash, it is their legal responsibility to try to make the victim financially “whole” again. Generally, this means being liable for things like the cost of medical care, lost wages, pain and suffering, funeral expenses and reduced quality of life.
