Please have a safe New Year's Eve

By Staff
It's a grisly prediction, but unfortunately, it almost always comes true.
Each year around this time the Alabama Department of Public Safety issues a statement predicting how many Alabamians will die on state roadways during the holiday period, particularly on New Year's Eve. This year, the estimation is that 13 people may lose their lives during the New Year's Eve holiday period. Last year, 26 people died during a 102-hour New Year's travel period, with 18 happening on rural roads and eight in urban areas. At least nine of those deaths involved alcohol, and 16 of the victims were not using safety belts.
Our area has been plagued with traffic fatalities this year, so much so that a metro newspaper in northwest Alabama named the abnormal number of fatalities as one of its top stories of the year.
Inevitably, many people choose to celebrate New Year's Eve by drinking alcohol.
We would recommend any number of alternatives to that, including church activities or just welcoming the new year with friends and family.
But we know the reality — many people will drink on New Year's Eve.
Since Franklin County is a dry county, drinking alcohol here automatically assumes that one would be forced to drive somewhere to get the alcohol. Plus, there will be people driving after attending New Year's Eve parties across the area.
Alcohol impairs your ability to drive, even after one drink, and all it takes is one horrifying second for a driver to become part of those grisly statistics we wrote of earlier.
If you must drink on New Year's Eve, please don't drive.
Let's make it a safe New Year's for Franklin County, and not add to the sad story of fatalities state-wide.