According to the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), more than 26,000 Coloradans are arrested for DUI and over 150 people are killed in alcohol-related crashes each year.
In an effort to combat drunk driving, on the last Fridays in August CDOT is offering “Last Call Lots” near some of downtown Denver’s most popular watering holes. The innovative program provides drivers with free parking and a voucher for a sober ride home with Lyft. Drivers must return to pick up their cars by 10:00 the next morning. The hope is that drivers will choose a safe ride and saving a few bucks over a booze-fuelled trip down the highway.
While results of the “Last Call Lots” experiment won’t be known for some time, the proposal is getting surprisingly mixed responses from the public.
“Free” Can Be Persuasive
Those in favor of the plan think it will provide Friday-night partiers an attractive alternative to driving intoxicated. The free lot may also catch the attention of drivers who started their night with no clear plan for how to get home safely. And many supporters have argued that anything that could reduce drunk driving is worth a try.
But naysayers are raising some interesting points and concerns. Arguably, the free parking could encourage people to drive downtown rather than take a cab or public transit both ways. That is problematic because research released last fall in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research shows that people become less resistive to drunk driving the drunker they become. Drivers who may have planned to use the free lot and ride may make a different choice once they’ve had a few, especially if they decide they don’t want the hassle of picking up their car the next morning.
Just Postponing the Problem?
And speaking of the next morning, CDOT’s 10 a.m. deadline for drivers to retrieve their cars may have unintended consequences by putting “still drunk” and hung-over drivers on the road. Many people do not know how long it takes alcohol to leave the body, meaning drinkers who would never get behind the wheel after leaving the bar may still be too drunk to drive the next morning—without realizing it.
Research has also found that getting behind the wheel while hung over—even after the alcohol has left your system—can have some of the same effects as driving while intoxicated. In short, critics argue the plan may not solve the problem of impaired driving so much as simply push it down the road a few hours.
Is CDOT’s idea worth a try or are the potential issues too great? Should they just offer a later retrieval deadline to avoid putting intoxicated drivers on the road the next morning?
I personally believe we have or will soon reach a point where increased DUI penalties will no longer reduce the number of DUI incidents. The goal of any program should be to reduce the number of impaired drivers on the road. We measure success in the reduction of fatalities, accidents and arrests but are we being successful in reducing the number of DUI drivers? DUI driving must become taboo like smoking in restaurants and bars and not wearing a seatbelt. It has to become “un-cool”. We need a cultural change. I applaud any attempt to keep DUI drivers off the road now. There is no perfect solution (yet) but we cannot stop experimenting. Let’s focus on giving drivers alternatives, as many as we possible.