There was very little reason to celebrate and be grateful over the Thanksgiving weekend in California as the California Highway Patrol has reported an increase in traffic accident fatalities from last year.

While celebrities like Tiger Woods and David Hasselhoff’s ex-wife Pamela Bach had run-ins with the law for a single car crash and a DUI respectively, they were more fortunate than the 30 other people who were killed on California highways during Thanksgiving.

The CHP has noted that DUI was a major factor in most fatal road accidents. Across the state, nearly 1,314 drivers were arrested for DUI offenses by CHP officers during the first 84 hours of the Thanksgiving weekend.

One tragic motor vehicle accident involved a family of four from Sonoma who were killed by a suspected drunken teen driver. John Maloney, 45, Susan Maloney, 42, and their children Grace, 5, and Aiden, 8, died on impact. The driver, Steven Culbertson, 19 died on Sunday.

Last year, only 24 people were killed over the Thanksgiving weekend as compared to this year’s reported figure of 30 fatalities.

It is always inevitable that there will be alcoholic beverages served during holiday celebrations. More often than not, the beer and wine will be free-flowing over stuffed turkey and pumpkin pie.

While drinking and imbibing spirits is a part of the revelry, there is still no excuse for drinking and driving. Even a BAC of .05 percent increases a driver’s risk for a car crash significantly and this is roughly equivalent to 2-3 alcoholic drinks.

While having a drink or two during thanksgiving would seem harmless, there are just some risks not worth taking.

During occasions, if you intend to drink, have a designated driver. If you brought your own car but got drunk in the course of the celebration, get a cab. Driving drunk is a decision that could change your life forever.

Tags: motor vehicle accident

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.