DWI deaths down in Minnesota, but progress slowing

Cory Ravina and Keith “Punky” Aubol were walking home one night in 2001 after drinking in Superior, Wis., when a drunken driver forever changed the course of their lives.

The crash left Ravina with a shattered knee, lifelong leg pain from two broken legs and in a wheelchair for six months. Aubol faced more challenging injuries: He was in a coma for nearly half a year, needed a full knee replacement and has a traumatic brain injury.

Before the crash, Aubol said he had a fiancee, lived on his own and ran two towing businesses. Now, he’s unable to hold a job.

The good news is preventable tragedies such as these are becoming far less common. In the decades since Ravina's and Aubol's lives changed forever, drunken driving deaths, injuries and arrests have declined substantially thanks to education and enforcement. Deaths caused by drunken drivers have decreased by 65% in Minnesota and 43% in Wisconsin in the past 20 years.

But progress is slowing, and every day on average 68 Minnesotans are arrested for driving while intoxicated, according to state figures. Then there are those who slip through the cracks.

A lingering acceptance of drunken driving, limited ignition interlocking system laws and a flux of drugged driving are contributing to a recent plateau, officials say.

And with the start of the “100 deadliest days” — the period of time between Memorial Day and Labor Day marked by an increase in deaths on the nation’s roads — drunken-driving prevention organizations are upping their initiatives.

“It's changing the story. ... And it takes a lot to get there. We haven't figured out what that is with DWI,” said David Bernstein, chair of Minnesota’s DWI Task Force. “But I think in terms of that public perception, we need to change the story.”

At the turn of the century, more than 200 people would die every year in drunken driving-related crashes on Minnesota roads. In the past 10 years, that number has been cut nearly in half.

Something is working.

“Truly changing behavior on the large scale that we have seen has been a product of education and outreach,” said Mike Hanson, director of the Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety. “More and more people are making that good decision — and more and more people are speaking up.”

Hanson said the culture shift in recent decades has been dramatic. Thanks to mass media campaigns, tough law enforcement, early education and technology, few even consider drunken driving an option.

Yet for the 25,000 Minnesotans arrested for DWIs last year and the 121 who were killed in drunken-driving crashes, there is still progress to be made.

Holly Kostrzewski, the regional coordinator for Minnesota Toward Zero Deaths, said much of the impaired driving problem “has to do with social norms and community norms.”

It’s just like seat belts, in a way. If your parents and friends didn’t wear seat belts, you probably won’t. If your parents and friends drink and drive, you probably will. As more people make the safer choice, it ripples out.

“Enforcement is not just law enforcement — it’s the enforcement of your family, your peer group, the people you surround yourself with,” Kostrzewski said. “It starts at home, it starts in our schools.”

Those social norms can be more difficult to shake in rural areas, where often the only way to or from a bar or a friend’s house is the vehicle that got you there — while in cities there are abundant taxis, buses and ride-sharing companies that make the choice much easier. Law enforcement then becomes a crucial last line of defense.

“Many times it's a fear of apprehension that will hopefully drive people to not drink and drive,” said Mark Peterson, executive state director of AAA in Minnesota. “And I think there’s been a great deal of success in that area. But ... those numbers are still too high when it comes to death.”

Two decades ago, 42% of all Minnesota roadway deaths were related to alcohol. Now, less than a third are alcohol-related.

Prevention efforts have been increasingly targeted at young men, as they are far more likely to die in drunken-driving crashes than other groups of drivers, according to federal data.

Though it isn’t always because they were the ones behind the wheel.

“We’re not seeing the kind of downward trending we should see,” said Art Morrow, executive state director of Minnesota’s Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Drunken-driving deaths decreased by around 11% from 2013 to 2017, while they decreased by around 26% in the five-year span before that.

Minnesota doesn’t mandate the installation of an ignition interlocking system if an individual is caught drunken driving, except for repeat offenders and those with a high blood-alcohol content. Passing a law mandating its installation after every DWI would curb drunken driving, Morrow said.

These systems — which require drivers to prove to a Breathalyzer they are sober in order to start their car — have stopped more than 3 million drunken-driving incidents since 2006, according to data from MADD.

“We’re trying to get Minnesota to catch up,” Morrow said.

The group’s prevention efforts have also shifted to focus on drugged driving — operating a motor vehicle under the influence of prescription opioids, heroin and other drugs.

“Impaired is not just alcohol, it’s drugs,” said Kostrzewski with Toward Zero Deaths. “And there’s a lot of meth — an awful lot of meth.”

However, this is a challenging fight.

“The thing with alcohol is it’s easy to measure in the blood,” Morrow said. “The problem with drugs is … they’re all over the place.”

It’s easier to measure the level of alcohol in one’s system than measuring the level of drugs — especially on the side of the road, Morrow said. This hinders an officer’s ability to catch drivers under the influence of drugs.