Drunken-driving deaths have dropped dramatically since the early 1980s across the nation and locally - the result of tougher law enforcement, safer cars and a less-tolerant public, experts say - but the problem of impaired motorists persists on car-reliant Long Island.
The recent spate of wrong-way drivers on major highways in Nassau and Suffolk counties, most of whom face DWI charges, has spotlighted the often-lethal consequences when those who have been drinking or taking drugs get behind the wheel.
"We don't have a mass transit system, obviously, like New York City," said Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice, who has made fighting drunken driving a signature cause. "It puts more people in cars, which means more drunk drivers, which makes more people victims."
In the past three decades, drunken-driving deaths nationwide have been cut in half, falling from 21,113 in 1982 to 10,839 in 2009, according to figures from an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety analysis.
That trend holds in New York State, which had 836 drunken-driving deaths in 1982 compared with 320 in 2009, a decline of 62 percent, according to the institute's analysis. Nassau County saw a drop from 60 to 19 such deaths during the same period, and in Suffolk the number fell from 88 to 39, the analysis found, declines of 68 and 56 percent respectively.
On Long Island, the number of drunken-driving deaths has seesawed over the past decade, so in 2009 the number of deaths was comparable to figures seen 10 years ago, the analysis revealed.
A troubling plateau
Yet, a broader look at the data reveals that while these deaths have fallen significantly, a stubborn plateau has been reached.
Statewide, drunken-driving fatalities have hovered at or near 30 percent of all motor-vehicle-related deaths annually for about the past five years - even as stronger penalties against offenders have become law.
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