Jeff Wentworth
State Senator, District 25

A happy holiday can all too easily become a sorrow-filled season when celebrants choose to drink and drive.

Impaired driving is one of America’s most often committed and deadliest crimes, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report. Nationwide, in 2005, almost 13,000 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes, resulting in a fatality every 41 minutes. Of the 13,000 killed, 1,569 died on Texas highways.

Not surprisingly, these statistics increase during the high-traffic holiday months; however, planning ahead may prevent a lifetime of regret. If you are planning to drink alcohol at an event, designate a sober driver before going out, and give that person your keys.

When choosing a driver, it is important to choose one who will honor the commitment to being a designated driver and not yield to the temptation to “join the party and have just one drink.”

A designated driver should be a licensed individual who has not had any alcohol. One or two drinks could be enough to place someone over the permissible Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limit of .08 percent. For drivers under the age of 21, the legal limit is .00 percent.

The holidays are also a time of increased travel. Often parents use road trips as a time to allow their teen-age children who have learners’ permits to practice their driving skills.

Senate Bill 153, which I authored and the Legislature passed this year, makes it an offense for the accompanying licensed passenger of a driver with a learner’s permit to sleep, be intoxicated, or to en-gage in any activity that prevents the passenger from observing or responding to the actions of the driver of the vehicle.

An individual found guilty of violating this statute will be charged with a Class C misdemeanor, which is punishable by a fine not to exceed $500.

Senate Bill 153 is just one more weapon in the Texas Legislature’s continuing effort to make Texas highways safer. Laws that raised the minimum drinking age to 21 are credited for cutting the traffic fatality rate for youth by over half since 1988.

Open-container laws, a bill to suspend a person’s driver’s license for 180 days if he or she refuses to take a breath or blood test, and other laws passed in previous legislative sessions also have helped reduce alcohol-related traffic crashes.

While the prevention of death and injury is the principal reason for driving sober, a drunk-driving arrest can put a crimp in your holiday budget. The Texas Department of Transportation estimates that a first-time DWI offense in certain areas of Texas, including Austin, could cost a driver as much as $15,000.

No one is immune to the problems associated with drinking and driving, so it is always important to remind the people we care about that choosing a designated driver could be the smartest holiday gift of all.

Texas State Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) represents District 25, which includes part of Bexar County. He can be reached via e-mail at jeff.wentworth@senate. state.tx.us.