Aliso Viejo Car Accidents Lower Than Average Due to DUI Programs

A planned community in Southern Orange County, California, Aliso Viejo has well designed streets and intersections with mild traffic even during rush hour commutes. Yet despite these advantages, Aliso Viejo car accident attorneys will acknowledge that car crashes do occur even in this relatively young city of 45,000 people.

Accident statistics from 2001 to 2003 reveal that Aliso Viejo had two fatal car collisions, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This works out to 0.5 fatal Aliso Viejo car crashes per 10,000 people, which was far below the national average.

Statistics compiled by the California Highway Patrol's Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) showed that in 2006, 51 people were injured in Aliso Viejo car crashes. Pedestrian accidents killed two and injured 13, and bicycle accidents injured eight. DUI crashes caused four injuries.

To bring down the rate of car collisions in Aliso Viejo, DUI teams from the Orange County Sheriff's Department (OCSD) targeted a variety of areas within the city. Part of Orange County's Avoid the 38 program, OCSD's Aliso Viejo effort implemented sobriety checkpoints at specific streets that have a high incidence of DUI related arrests and collisions. The goal was to weed out motorists who were driving a motor vehicle without a driver's license or who were driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Drunk drivers pose an ongoing threat to the safety and well-being of motorists, pedestrians and cyclists in Aliso Viejo and other cities throughout the state. The fact is, nearly 200,000 drivers are arrested for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol every year in California. And while most DUI arrests are male, an alarming number of drunk drivers are female and their ranks are rising.

National DUI statistics reveal even more tragedies in injuries and loss of life. In 2006, 13,470 people died in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes--that's an average of one alcohol-impaired-driving fatality every 39 minutes. Sadly, that same year, 306 children age 14 and younger were killed in drunk driving collisions. Children riding in vehicles with drivers who had a BAC level of .08 or higher accounted for half (153) of these deaths.

A growing chorus of Aliso Viejo car collision lawyers have noted that drivers who are impaired by drugs or alcohol must be removed from city streets and highways. These attorneys see, first hand, the devastation drunk drivers cause every year in Aliso Viejo. Many applaud the efforts of local law enforcement to prevent impaired motorists from causing car crashes in the city.