Delaware drivers warned after Christmas DUI fatalities

After a pair of fatal crashes involving alcohol around Christmas, Delaware highway safety officials are warning drivers not to mix drinking and driving heading into the weekend before New Year’s Eve.

Two people were killed and three others were injured in two separate crashes in Delaware over Christmas.  Since Thanksgiving, five people have died and 57 people were injured in impaired driving crashes.  That’s higher than last year’s holiday season totals when two people were killed and 24 injured in impaired driving crashes.

“Impaired driving crashes kill too many innocent lives on our roadways every year and the unfortunate part is that they are all preventable crashes,” says Jana Simpler, director of the Office of Highway Safety.  “This tragic loss of life can be reduced if we continue to remove impaired drivers off our roadways.”

The state is trying to get those impaired drivers off the roads with a series of DUI checkpoints throughout the state in the coming days.  State Police will man checkpoints in New Castle and Longneck on Friday, multiple departments will operate a checkpoint in Smyrna on Saturday, and the New Castle County DUI Task Force will run a checkpoint on Monday in Wilmington.