Law enforcement agencies have run campaign after campaign in attempts to prevent drunken driving incidents and it has seemingly paid off in the last few years.

Recently released Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics reveal a 30 percent decrease in drunken driving incidents over the past five years. Hall County incidents have taken a similar path.

Based on a 2010 national telephone survey of about 210,000 U.S. adults, the CDC estimated about 112 millions instances of drunken driving in 2010 — the lowest figure since the survey began in 1993. That compares to a survey-high of 161 million instances in 2006.

The Hall County Sheriff’s Office’s figures of DUI incidents date back to 2008. Since then DUIs 

in the county have decreased by 

29 percent. 

While law enforcement officials credit that decline to increased responsibility among drivers, as well as awareness campaigns, they also say it could partially be due to a decline in the number of establishments that serve alcohol.

“We attribute it to a variety of things, but among those is fewer establishments in Hall County that serve alcohol on premises for consumption,” said Sgt. Stephen Wilbanks of the sheriff’s office.

And the reason for fewer bars in the county can be attributed to the economic recession in the cases of many closures.

“That’s probably due to the economy,” Wilbanks said. “People are not spending as much money, so many establishments have closed down.”

Without a place to drink alcohol, many people are opting to drink at home, keeping more of them off the roads.

“It’s decreased the convenience of drinking for consumption on the premises,” Wilbanks said.

While Wilbanks credited much of the decrease to economic factors, he also said awareness has also increased. As a result of education programs and campaigns, people are aware of the dangers of drinking and driving.

Several programs including the Teen Driver Program and the Avoiding, Drugs, Violence, Alcohol and Negative Consequences Education program — formerly Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education — are taught at schools throughout Hall County.

During the Teen Driver Program, high school students are given a chance to drive a golf cart through a course while wearing a pair of goggles that provide the same impairment effect as alcohol.

The county also has many transportation options, leaving people with one less excuse to drive while inebriated. Among those options is BPI-Safe Rides, a free service that operates on holidays transporting people and their insured vehicles from any location in Hall County to their residence in the county.

Vivienne Long-Speer with BPI-Safe Rides said not only have people been more responsible by driving less after consuming alcohol, but bartenders have also had an impact. 

“We have seen an increase in people calling for rides and also the servers have been very forthcoming with their patrons,” she said. “The servers have been very proactive even when we’re not running a campaign.”

Those servers, Long-Speer said, have taken it upon themselves to request BPI-Safe Rides provide rides for their patrons, and encourage them not to drive after drinking.

“We really owe a lot to the servers for suggesting to people to find alternative ways to getting home,” she said.

The Dram Shop Law could be a reason why so many businesses that serve alcohol have been more vigilant in encouraging their patrons to find rides rather than drive drunk.

Under the law, businesses that sell alcohol to a person who is obviously intoxicated could be held liable if anyone is injured by the drunken patron.

That law has been widely criticized, though, because it is often difficult to prove that the alcohol served by a businesses directly resulted in an accident.

“Some of it’s just common sense,” Long-Speer said. “If a person leaves the facility and you know that they’re unfit to get behind the wheel, the smart thing to do is to try to come up with a better plan than that.”

Long-Speer said the decline in drunk driving incidents is encouraging.

“It makes a difference,” she said. “We’re really glad that people are thinking about it. Think before you drink.”