| National update |
Blow or go: High schools using Breathalyzers
BY MARTHA IRVINE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Few teachers at Westwood High
School in suburban Boston wanted to
chaperone school dances. There were
drunken quarrels and dramas. At one
school event, a student was rushed to
the hospital with alcohol poisoning.
“It’s a drag to deal with it,” one
teacher told assistant principal Emily
Parks. And that’s how she and other
school administrators were feeling,
too. “It’s frankly kind of frightening
when you have students who’ve had
enough to drink that it’s presenting a
safety problem,” Parks said.
So in recent weeks, she and fellow
administrators adopted a policy that a
growing number of schools are using
to deter drinking at after-hours events:
They’re now testing students who en
ter school dances, including the up
coming prom, with Breathalyzers.
Some teens complain that the test
ing policies are intrusive and misdirect
ed. They include 18-year-old Jason
Speakman, who thinks officials’ efforts
would be more effective if they tested
students as they left events to drive
home, or increased road patrols.
“Kids getting into cars stumbling
drunk — that’s a problem," said
Speakman, a high school senior in Bar
rington, R.I., where school officials are
considering alcohol tests.
If he were asked to take a test when
entering a school event, he said he
would refuse — even if he’d had no al
cohol. “I just feel like it’s a violation of
privacy,” he said.
In an attempt to be less disruptive,
officials at some schools use alcohol
testing only on students they suspect
have been drinking — ones who might
have slurred speech or are chewing a
lot of gum to hide the odor.
“Without a Breathalyzer ... you
have to be lucky or the kid has to be
stupid,” said Rich Catrambone, a so
cial worker at Newton South High
School in Newton, Mass., where test
ing is done on a case-by-case basis.
“This takes the guess work out of it. ”
Last fall, officials at the school ex
panded testing to a night
football game, a move that caught
many students off guard and
resulted in nine suspensions.
That outcome prompted student
newspaper editor Chiraag Mundhe to
write an editorial suggesting that giv
ing students advance warning would
do more to deter underage drinking.
“It really didn’t curb the problem; it
just punished kids,” said Mundhe, a
17-year-old senior.
He’s more supportive of the type of
policy adopted at nearby Westwood
High, where every student entering
dances must take a Breathalyzer test.
At North Central High School in In
dianapolis, an early adopter of alcohol
testing, that’s been the rule for 10
years. And Principal C.E. Quandt has
never had a student test positive —
proof, he says, that students are getting
the point.
“You can’t protect kids 24-7, but you
can make the experience they have
here a positive one,” Quandt said.
“We’re not going to ‘wink-wink’ the is
sue. There is a right and wrong.”
Now some parents are
following suit.
Binge drinking by teens decreasing
American teenagers were surveyed on their drinking habits. The
trend showed a decline from the last decade.
Students who had five drinks or more in a row in the last two weeks
29.8% 29.2%
-22.9% 22%
30 percent
20
10
12.9% 11.4%
8th grader
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10th grader
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I
12th grader
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1991 1997 2004 1991 1997 2004 1991 1997 2004
SOURCE: Monitoring the Future study, University of Michigan
AP
Worried about a spate of drunk
driving accidents, Steve Sherrets, a
father in Independence, Iowa, pur
chased his own tester, a brand
known as Alcohawk, to monitor his
two teenage sons.
“At first, they said ‘You can be
lieve us,”’ Sherrets said of his sons’
reactions. “And I said, ‘Well, I’m
sure that’s what the kids told
their parents before they got into
accidents, too.’”
Traffic deaths rise; seat belt use reinforced
BY KEN THOMAS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The high
way fatality rate sank to a record low
last year, the government estimated
Thursday, but the administration and
auto safety advocates bemoaned an in
crease in the total number of traffic
deaths and urged a national focus on
seat belt use.
The number of deaths of motorcy
clists and drivers and passengers in
sport utility vehicles and large trucks
increased. Alcohol-related fatalities
were projected to decline for the sec
ond straight year.
Overall, 42,800 people died on the
nation’s highways in 2004, up from
42,643 in 2003, according to projec
tions by the National Highway TVaffic
Safety Administration.
Reporting the mixed results, Trans
portation Secretary Norman Mineta
said the nation was “in the midst of a
national epidemic” and urged mo
torists to buckle up.
“If this many people were to die
from any one disease in a single year,
Americans would demand a vaccine,”
Mineta said. “The irony is we already
have the best vaccine available to re
duce the death toll on our highways —
safety belts.”
The fatality rate dropped as the total
number of traffic deaths crept up be
cause more drivers were on the road.
The fatality rate slid from
1.48 deaths per 100 million vehicle
miles traveled in 2003 to 1.46 deaths in
2004. It was the lowest since records
were first kept in 1966, when the rate
was 5.50 deaths.
Fifty-six percent of those killed
weren’t wearing seat belts, a rate un
changed from 2003.
NHTSA Administrator Jeffrey Runge
said seat belt use is at 80 percent, an
all-time high. But he added, “We could
save thousands more lives each year if
everyone buckled up.”
Jacqueline Gillan, vice president for
watchdog group Advocates for High
way and Auto Safety, called the results
“bad news for the American public.”
“The government wants us to be
lieve that even though more family
members and friends were killed in
crashes last year that things are re
ally getting better because we spent
more time driving,” Gillan said.
“The cold hard reality is that we are
stuck in neutral.”
The figures were released as Con
gress considers safety programs in
the pending federal highway bill.
Runge has sought incentives for
states with seat belt laws that let po
lice stop motorists for failing to use
belts, or states that reach 90 percent
belt use for two years.
In 2004, the number of vehicles reg
istered grew to 235.4 million from
230.8 million in 2003. Vehicle miles
traveled increased slightly, from 2.89
trillion in 2003 to 2.92 trillion last year.
Deaths of drivers and passengers in
SUVs were projected to grow from
4,446 in 2003 to 4,666 last year, an in
crease of 4.9 percent. Rollover fatalities
in these popular vehicles increased by
6.9 percent to 2,821 in 2004. SUV
rollover injuries dropped 3 percent,
from 67,000 in 2003 to 65,000 last year.
SUV supporters said that there were
roughly 10 percent more registered
SUVs on the road in 2004 and that the
fatality rate for the vehicles has de
clined since the late 1990s.
“Things are getting better as it re
lates to SUVs,” said Ron DeFore,
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spokesman for the Sport Utility Vehicle
Owners of America.
The number of deaths dropped
2.4 percent for people in passenger
cars to 18,987 and fell 2 percent for
pickup trucks to 5,787. Among large
trucks, the number of people killed
grew 3.7 percent to 5,169.
Alcohol-related fatalities slid
2.1 percent last year, to 16,654.
Wendy Hamilton, president of Moth
ers Against Drunk Driving, said the
organization was “cautiously opti
mistic” about the report.
However, she said, while the data
represented “a step in the right direc
tion, we caution the country, law
makers and law enforcement not to
become complacent about the seri
ous problem of impaired driving in
this country. ”
Meanwhile, motorcycle fatalities
rose for the seventh straight year, up
7.3 percent to 3,927.
Former NHTSA Administrator Joan
Claybrook, who is now president of
watchdog group Public Citizen, said
the increase in motorcycle deaths
was tied to a lack of helmet laws in
30 states.
Total traffic deaths
up, rate down
While the total number of people
killed in a vehicle crash rose,
most drove more miles, so the
overall fatality rate actually
decreased.
Number of people killed
48,390 42,800
42,643—11
50.000
40.000
30.000
20.000
10,000
0
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'94
'04*
Fatality rate
3.0 people per 100 million VMT**
* Projections ** Vehicle miles traveled
SOURCE: National Highway AP
Traffic Safety Administration
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