The summer months are typically the deadliest months of the year for car accidents, according to the American Automobile Association, and as a result U students are advised to exhibit caution this Fourth of July weekend.
“For the past 10 years, July 4 has had the most fatalities of any time of the year in Utah,” said Rolayne Fairclough of the Utah AAA.
Fairclough anticipates the number of Utah travelers this holiday weekend to be around 350,000, which is an increase of 3.1 percent from last year.
In a written statement, the AAA estimated more than 290,000 will travel by car alone, and several of them will be U students.
Marina De Amorim, a U sophomore in biology, is planning to drive to Colorado Springs with her friends for the Fourth of July weekend.
De Amorim was once involved in an accident because she was distracted while talking on a cell phone. She plans not to play around in the car on the way to Colorado.
“It’s just not worth it,” De Amorim said.
Fairclough said she believes college students are more at risk because they are busy and pressed for time and push themselves too hard.
Consequently, she said this lifestyle leads to lack of sleep and the tendency to speed.
Another reason students are more at risk for an automobile accident is the propensity for driving under the influence of alcohol. According to AAA Utah, driving under the influence of alcohol was the third-leading source of fatal crashes in 2003.
Sgt. Kent Curtis of the U campus police department said that because many fatalities occur during holiday weekends, U officers will stop more cars than usual to find the alcohol-impaired drivers this weekend.
Curtis said the Salt Lake Multi-Agency Task Force, in conjunction with MADD, is announcing new, more severe DUI penalties that will become effective today. The new law increases the number of years a person may have an alcohol-restricted driving privilege for DUI related punishments.
The alcohol-restricted driving privilege means that a person is prohibited from driving with any alcohol in his or her system for a certain number of years (two years to lifetime), depending on the severity of the offense. Violation will result in a one-year revocation of driving privileges and up to 10 more years of restricted driving.
According to a written statement by the Utah Safety Council, about 27,600 people will be injured and 645 people will die on the highways nationwide this weekend.
The council reminds motorists to fasten their seatbelts-if every person riding in a motor vehicle buckles up this weekend, 173 lives nationwide can be saved, including six Utahns.
