Labor Day weekend is generally defined as the time period beginning 6 p.m. on Friday and ending at 11:59 p.m. on Monday. It is one of the busiest traveling times of the year as millions of motorists will be on our highways for a last minute fling for the end of summer vacation. We are not trying to discourage anyone from traveling on this labor day weekend, but we would like to bring to light a few statistics and observations about being on the road.
Since January the National Safety Council has reported that an estimated 19,100 people have died on U.S. roads and 2.2 million have been seriously injured. When it comes to Labor Day weekend, the safety council estimates 438 people will be killed. AAA has not determined the number of drivers on the road this weekend, but in the past 5 years that figure has topped 35 million for people that travel over 50 minutes or more from home (primarily by car).
Keep in mind that the largest contributors to the death toll on the highways are the most obvious: (1) drunken driving; (2) not wearing a seatbelt; (3) distracted driving; and (4) fatigued driving. These are all avoidable factors.
As one can reasonably assume many trained police, deputies and troopers will be working the highways this weekend purposely looking for drivers under the influence and other driving infractions (speeding, running red lights, tail lights not working, etc.) either by checkpoints or simply being on the lookout as trained officers do. Their slogan for 2016 is “Driver Sober or Get Pulled Over”.
We at Ron Kim Law wish you a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend. Please be realistic and don’t be a statistic on labor day weekend!
