Can You Help a Family Shattered by a Horrible Tragedy?

I got to write the Causes and Effect: My Year of Giving Daily blog for six days this month and donated to some wonderful causes each day. But there's a cause that, unfortunately, popped up after my Causes and Effect run was over that I need share:

The I-275 Wrong-Way Tragedy" GoFundMe campaign exists because of a horrific accident that occurred the morning of December 12th. A 59-year-old man was driving the wrong way on Interstate 275 in Canton, Michigan, that morning and slammed head-on into another car, killing Nicholas Pare, 33, and his fianceé, Sharon McIntyre, 32.

Police found an open bottle of vodka in the car that was going the wrong way and say that alcohol was possibly involved in the crash.

Nicholas Pare and Sharon McIntyre were innocent victims. So are the three children they leave behind, ages 7, 13, and 15.

Authorities are waiting for toxicology tests to come back before charging the wrong-way driver (who, of course, sustained non-life-threatening injuries). Right now, they won't say if the driver was drunk or not, but you don't have to be a genius to figure out that he probably was. An open container of alcohol in the car and driving the wrong way on a freeway at 10:40am on a Tuesday morning are pretty good pieces of evidence, if you ask me.

Drunk driving sucks. Consider these statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

• In 2015, 10,265 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (29%) of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.
• Of the 1,132 traffic deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years in 2015, 209 (16%) involved an alcohol-impaired driver.
• In 2015, nearly 1.1 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. That’s 1% of the 111 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults each year.

Those numbers sicken me, and until this country decides to do something drastic to combat our drunk driving problem, they will just get worse.

I don't know what the answer is. Maybe it's mandatory ignition interlock devices on all cars, like I wrote about back in 2015. Or maybe it's a zero-tolerance policy for impaired driving. Or harsher sentences for first-time offenders. Or something no one else has even thought of yet. I just know that something has to be done. Human lives depend on it.

I grew up the son of an alcoholic father, which is one reason why the subject of drunk driving gets my blood boiling. As I wrote in a post about another tragedy back in 2009:

My father was an alcoholic who had more DUIs than I could even count. On more than one occasion, he hit parked cars and all I can remember is thanking God that the cars were parked and empty. As a kid, riding in the car with my dad while he was intoxicated was a regular occurrence. I will never forget how scared I was, wondering if I was going to make it home alive, but too terrified to speak up about it. 

Whenever I hear about an incident like the one that killed Nicholas Pare and Sharon McIntyre, I think about my dad. And I'm grateful that he never physically hurt anyone as a result of his drunk driving.

Today my family made a $20.00 donation to the GoFundMe campaign for Nicholas and Sharon's family. It will help them pay for two funerals and start a fund to take care of three kids who have had their lives completely shattered, just in time for Christmas. If you have any extra money at all this holiday season, please consider making a donation, too. It doesn't have to be a large donation. Just something. Anything at all. Believe me, every little bit will help immensely.

And, as a final reminder... If you drink, please don't even think about driving. Because so often it's other people who end up suffering the greatest pain.

Below is a direct link to the GoFundMe campaign. If you donate, feel free to let me know in the comments below. It will make my heart happy to know that I was able to round up an extra donation or two for a family going through hell this holiday season.

Rest in peace, Nicholas and Sharon.

Click here to donate: I-275 Wrong-Way Tragedy" GoFundMe campaign

This family has been torn apart and the kids need your help.

Has the Time Come for Mandatory Ignition Interlock Devices?

(Note: This blog post was originally published on The Fix's website on March 25, 2015.)

It's no secret that drunk driving is one of this country's biggest safety concerns. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), every day almost 30 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This amounts to one death every 51 minutes. In 2012, 10,322 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (31%) of all traffic-related deaths in the U.S.

Wow. Those statistics are pretty sobering (pun intended).

If the cost of human lives isn't enough, drunk driving also costs this country billions of actual dollars each year. An NHTSA study cited on the Centers for Disease Control website states that the annual cost of alcohol-related crashes in the U.S. totals more than $59 billion.

Wow (again).

So how do we prevent the lethal combination of alcohol and automobiles from killing so many Americans going forward? Is there anything out there that could help reduce those astronomical figures stated above?

There is, and it's called an ignition interlock.

Historically, ignition interlock devices (IID) have been installed in the cars of people who have been convicted of driving while impaired. They prevent operation of the vehicle by anyone with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) above a specified safe level. The concept is simple: Before you start your car, you exhale into the device. If it detects an unsafe BAC level, your ignition is locked and you can't start your car.

I've thought for a long time that IIDs would be an effective way to prevent people from driving while intoxicated. More than 20 years ago, after my father racked up his last of many DUIs, he had a court-ordered ignition interlock installed on his car. At the time, I was working for my dad and driving him around on sales calls. So I experienced firsthand what it's like to operate a car with an IID. And I had no problem whatsoever with it. It also kept my father from drinking and driving, which is something no one or nothing else had been able to do up to that point. As someone who worried constantly about my dad possibly hurting someone with his car, the IID actually provided me with a little bit of comfort. (That might sound silly, but it's true.)

"Why don't they just put these things on all cars?" I would frequently ask myself.

My interest in the IID idea was rekindled recently when I opened my email inbox and saw the latest daily news blast from "Join Together," a news service of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids. The headline for one of the articles read:

"Putting Alcohol Ignition Interlocks in New Cars Could Prevent Many Deaths: Study"

When I clicked through to the story, I was shocked by what I read.

[Over a 15-year implementation period,] if all new cars had devices that prevent drunk drivers from starting the engine, an estimated 85 percent of alcohol-related deaths could be prevented in the United States, a new study concludes. The devices, called alcohol ignition interlocks, could prevent more than 59,000 crash fatalities and more than 1.25 million non-fatal injuries, according to the University of Michigan researchers.

Wow (yet again). Those numbers are ridiculous, but in the best possible way.

The findings from that University of Michigan study were published in the March 15, 2015, issue of the American Journal of Public Health as "Modeling the Injury Prevention Impact of Mandatory Alcohol Ignition Interlock Installation in All New US Vehicles."

The lead author of the study, Dr. Patrick Carter, an emergency physician with the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, said most drunk drivers make about 80 trips under the influence of alcohol before they are stopped for a DUI. "If we decided that every new car should have an alcohol ignition interlock that’s seamless to use for the driver and doesn’t take any time or effort, we suddenly have a way to significantly reduce fatalities and injuries that doesn’t rely solely on police,” he told Reuters.

The study also concluded that over $340 billion in injury-related costs could be avoided over the same 15-year period.

Reading numbers like those cited in the U of M study make me think of a blog I wrote about a year ago called "Aren't All Lives Worth Saving?" The subject of that blog was the NHTSA's decision to require rearview cameras in all new cars sold in the U.S. by 2018. What prompted that decision? The NHTSA estimated rearview cameras in all cars could "prevent between 13 and 15 deaths and as many as 1,300 injuries annually."

Hmm. If you average the cumulative totals arrived at by the U of M researchers, ignition interlocks could prevent more than 3,930 fatalities and 83,300 injuries annually. That's way more than the backup cams' 15 deaths and 1,300 injuries. So let's mandate IIDs on all new cars. It's a no-brainer, right?

Of course, it isn't. In fact, it's a crazy idea, because it would make cars more expensive. Oh, and there's also the little issue of people's rights. This is America, dammit, and no one's going to tell people when they can or can't drive their precious automobiles, even if it means saving lives. Can you imagine the field day the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) would have if the government required installation of ignition interlocks in all new cars? It would not be pretty.

Well, I've always enjoyed watching the ACLU do their thing, so maybe it's time for someone to officially propose mandatory IIDs and see where the idea goes. We learn from a very early age that if we abuse the privileges we have, those privileges sometimes have to be altered accordingly. Driving a car is a privilege, and if people can't do it responsibly—which means NOT doing it after they've been drinking—then maybe it's time to put a new technological safeguard in place.

If I recall correctly, a whole lot of people weren’t real thrilled when they were told they had to wear their seatbelt. But people adapted, it worked out okay, and we’re all safer because of it. Is this so much different than that? Is it really asking that much for people to be sober before they get behind the wheel and drive their car?

I think not.

What do you think about the idea? Feel free to weigh in by commenting below.

New Blog on The Fix Website

Happy Sunday, people! I'm just dropping in to let you know I have a new--and somewhat controversial?--blog up on The Fix website. It was posted late Friday and has already generated some interesting comments.

The blog is titled "Has the Time Come for Mandatory Ignition Interlock Devices?" It was inspired by a story that showed up in my email inbox last week via the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids' "Join Together" daily email, which collects the latest news on substance abuse and addiction.

The gist of the blog is whether or not Ignition Interlock Devices--which prevent someone from starting their car if their blood alcohol content is above the legal limit--should be installed on all new cars. A recent study by the University of Michigan offers up some pretty staggering numbers with regards to how many lives could be saved--and injuries prevented--if they were.

I invite you to head over to The Fix and read my blog. If you feel inclined to comment on it, and/or share it with others, that would be fabulous.

Here's a direct link to the blog:

http://www.thefix.com/content/has-time-come-mandatory-ignition-interlock-devices

As always, thanks for reading. I truly appreciate your support!

Peace.