New Year's Eve Drinking/Driving

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
January 7, 2009

The Question: “Will (or did) you drive on New Year’s Eve after drinking any alcoholic beverage?”

The responses:
Yes: 21 (48%)
No: 23 (52%)

I intentionally omitted words like “responsibly”, “moderately” or “excessively”.

Many thanks to the 44 readers who responded. I’m glad all got home safely.

Yes, it is possible to drink and drive safely. If a driver had one glass of wine with dinner and four hours later drove six blocks or six miles home, no problem. Laws apply to drivers who are impaired, not to the driver who drinks and is not impaired or has a BAC of 0.08% or higher.

For all the intensive enforcement that was planned for New Year’s Eve, I don’t recall seeing anything in the local newspaper about results. Has anyone seen anything about the number of DUI tickets or accidents with alcohol involved for New Year’s Eve in McHenry County?

If you were out on New Year's Eve, did you see a driver you suspected of being impaired? What did you do?