Anti-drunken-driving efforts aimed at Latinos
[/i]By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY[/i]
North Carolina is trying to combat a major problem among young Hispanic men drawn to the state by plentiful jobs: drunken-driving rates two to three times as high as those of other groups.
According to the University of North Carolina's Highway Safety Research Center, 7.04% of Hispanic drivers involved in crashes in the state in 2005 were suspected of driving while intoxicated. That compares with 2.82% of whites in crashes and 2.29% of African-Americans, according to Eric Rodgman, a researcher at the center. Most of the Hispanics involved in crashes are young men, he says.
Many of them have left their family, church and social networks behind when they come to the USA to work, and they sometimes drink to combat loneliness, says Antonio Asion, public safety director for El Pueblo, a non-profit Hispanic advocacy group in Raleigh.
"You see the same thing with this same age group of people that are non-Latino," Asion says. "College students when they go away from home for the first time (drink to excess). If you look in the military, you see the same thing."
Leading cause of death
El Pueblo is working with the North Carolina Governor's Highway Safety Program in an effort to reduce the disproportionate number of highway fatalities and injuries among Hispanic drivers in the state by increasing awareness of driving laws and safety issues.
Nationally, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for Hispanics age 1-34 but only the eighth leading cause for Americans overall, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Other federal data show that 47% of Hispanic crash deaths are alcohol-related, compared with 40% for the general population.
The problem is complicated by numerous high-profile cases in which illegal immigrants have killed others while driving drunk. Talk show hosts Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera had a shouting match about the issue Thursday night on Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor while discussing an accident last month in Virginia Beach in which two teenage girls died. The driver, charged with manslaughter and suspected of being drunk, has admitted to being in the USA illegally.
Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., is pushing legislation that would require illegal immigrants convicted of drunken driving to be automatically deported. The House passed the measure in 2005 as an amendment to a larger bill, but it went nowhere in the Senate.
North Carolina is one of several states trying to address the disparity in highway death rates through community outreach and education efforts:
After several fatalities involving Hispanic men driving drunk last year in Nashville, Conexion Americas, a non-profit community organization, teamed with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, State Farm Insurance, police and Hispanic media in an initiative in Tennessee.
"It was the first time anything like that had been done in Tennessee," says Jose Gonzalez, executive director of Conexion Americas.
Gonzalez sees a lack of awareness about the dangers of drunken driving among many young Hispanic men "especially recent immigrants from the rural areas of Mexico, Guatemala or wherever. Most likely, they didn't even own a car in their home country. These immigrants, when they come to the United States and are able to purchase a car, they don't have this drunk driving message in their paradigm. They've never been exposed to these constant messages."
Arizona is running a 30-month pilot program called "Pasa las Llaves (Pass the Keys)" that's trying to reduce impaired driving among Hispanics in Tucson and south Tucson, according to Richard Fimbres, director of the Arizona Governor's Office of Highway Safety.
"The key to changing behavior is usually education and high-visibility enforcement," he says.
Officers conduct dragnets for impaired drivers, target those with outstanding DUI arrest warrants and work with Latino community and church groups.
Colorado started its first comprehensive DUI program for Hispanics last May with saturation patrols, sobriety checkpoints and a Spanish-language educational campaign. The state Department of Transportation plans to repeat the effort this year if funding can be found, spokeswoman Stacey Stegman says.
Cultural challenges
"Colorado has a very large Latino population," she says. "The numbers for DUIs within this ethnic group is just to the point that we feel this needs to be addressed."
Such efforts must overcome cultural barriers, Asion says. "If you're drinking and you can't drive because you're inebriated, you're saying you can't handle your alcohol," he says. "Your machismo then kicks in, and you don't let anybody else drive, especially not a woman. That's why the designated-driving thing doesn't work."
Raul Caetano, regional dean at the University of Texas School of Public Health, who has extensively studied the issue of Hispanic immigrants driving drunk, says data are contradictory.
He says that national surveys asking drivers if they've been arrested on drunken-driving charges within the past 12 months found Hispanic arrest rates roughly equal to those of whites.
Caetano also says his research has found higher rates of drinking and driving among native-born Hispanics than Hispanic immigrants.
The North Carolina effort, called "Nuestra Seguridad," includes a media campaign, DWI checkpoints and publishing the names of Latinos arrested on drunken-driving charges in Spanish-language newspapers. "One of the things we felt we needed to address specifically was the disproportionate number of crashes and DWI crashes that involved our Hispanic population," says Darrell Jernigan, director of the Governor's Highway Safety Program.
Asion says some young Hispanic men are confused about how much alcohol it takes to make them drunk.
"I'm pretty certain everybody knows drinking and driving is wrong," he says. "But how much does it take to be legally drunk is the question. A lot of people think, 'A 12-pack (of beer), that's my legal limit.' No, that's way over the legal limit."
Contributing: Associated Press
Anti-drunken-driving efforts aimed at Latinos
