Drinking and Driving…On Ice
Students of the University of Alaska Anchorage have a unique problem that other college students don’t. The roads to and from campus are covered with ice for about half the year! However, a little ice on the road isn’t going to stop students from partying, drinking, and driving.
For a long time, Anchorage has been proud of its low DUI rate. The state has funded many education programs to help reduce the number of fatalities, and for a long time they have been successful. But for some reason things have changed. A recent article reported a sharp increase in Alaska’s traffic fatalities.
The big question here is why? What could make driving fatalities increase so dramatically and so quickly? Because of State budget cuts, the Alaskan roads have been suffering. Department of Transit spokeswoman Meadow Bailey said, ”the DOT has lost 22 percent of its budget, or $60 million, to budget cuts since 2015.
This has caused the loss of 55 equipment operator jobs who are directly in charge of maintaining the roads. Bailey even went on to say that some neighborhoods are low priority, thus leaving them in even more danger.
Driving is already dangerous, adding in frozen roads is not helping anybody. It’s incredibly easy to lose traction. Brakes can fail to stop your car and your wheels can totally abandon you. Then add a couple drunk drivers into the mix and you have a situation that increased traffic fatalities by 10% in a single year.
As citizens, we expect our government to use our tax dollars wisely. Unfortunately, we cannot always rely on them to maintain the roads properly. This adds another element of danger for drivers sober and drunk. Not only do we have to worry about other drivers, whether they’re intoxicated or not, but we also have to worry about the quality of the road we are on.
So how do we solve this problem? Charities, fundraisers, writing a letter to Congress? Even if we began those processes it would take years for anything to change. For now, we have to be as careful as possible when getting behind the wheel.
Winter is a dangerous time and we all know winter is coming. So, if there’s a party that you’re thinking about going to, and you know you are going to drink. Factor in the possibility that the road to and from the party is covered with ice and nobody from the government has checked on it in weeks. It sounds silly, but it could mean the difference between life and death.
The best thing to do if you really want to make a change is take note of the roads that you notice are poorly kept. Take pictures, bring them to your local police station or government office. Make some noise and get people to notice. Who knows, you might just save a life.
