As 2025 wrapped up, family and friends were brought together in the season of celebration. For many, it was a time of joy and new beginnings, for some families however, the holidays may have instead been a time of mourning and loss. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), annual trends have shown drunk driving incidents during the holiday season are at their highest in 15 years. In 2023, there were 1,038 fatalities reported nationally in December alone, 298 of which were reported in the six day gap between Christmas and New Years. In response, law enforcement patrols on roads increased during the 2025 holiday months as part of the NHTSA’s “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign.

In a country where personal vehicles have become so commonplace in the average citizen’s daily commute, driving is like riding a bike to Americans. The fact that the average American is operating heavy duty machinery at dangerous speeds is a notion people often fail to acknowledge when they get in the driver’s seat. On top of this, there is a lot of trust people are putting into the thousands of other drivers that they share the road with every single day; one mishap can be fatal. That’s not to say people don’t take driving seriously, but they most certainly don’t while intoxicated. According to the NHTSA, “Every day, about 34 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes — that’s one person every 42 minutes.”

News stories about drunk driving deaths have started to become background noise and no one thinks they could ever be the next headline. In reality, no one is out of the question, especially teenage drivers, of which car collisions are the leading cause of death. With high school students often going to parties or hanging out with friends to celebrate the new year, that trip from point A to point B is a recipe for disaster.