TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Holiday parties lead to extra holiday drinking---drinking and driving---and wrecks.
The Southern Arizona DUI Task Force is planning its own special holiday greeting for anyone who drinks and drives.
With the holidays, the holiday parties, and all the drinking that goes with them, police in this area, the DUI Task Force, has a message: “Going out tonight? So are we."
It’s a different sort of holiday tradition: The annual warning from the Southern Arizona DUI Task Force that when holiday cheer comes from a bottle it can ruin a holiday or a lifetime, with injury death and grief.
Marana Police Chief Terry Rozema says, “As simple as the message is: Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, the reality is as soon as people start drinking, the first thing that does is judgement and they need people around them, they need friends who are willing to confront them and say, you know what, you shouldn't drive, you had a couple. It's not worth it, let me call you a ride, let me call you a cab, let me call you an Uber whatever the case may be. There's really no excuses right?"
Here's another point a lot of officers made here. You don't qualify as a designated driver just because you're the guy who's been drinking the least.
Grants from the Governor's Office of Highway Safety help pay for the extra enforcement and extra equipment. Director Alberto Gutier thinks ten percent of people who drive drunk believe DUI wrecks happen to other people.
"This kind of mental stage people are in, It's not gonna happen to me, I can drive drunk and I heard people tell me, They have been driving drunk for 20 years and never been arrested."
But the DUI Task Force is dedicated to stopping drivers like that before they hurt, or kill someone.
