As of September 2018, 949 persons have died in traffic accidents related to alcoholic drink consumptions. Sunday has accounted for the greatest number of deaths, 225.
In a general sense more than 2,000 persons die each year in this country in different traffic accidents, of which 60% are caused by human error such as a lack of prudence. This places the Dominican Republic in the second place among 182 nations belonging to the United Nations in traffic accident deaths. The DR has an accident death rate of 41.7%.
Likewise, accidents are consuming nearly 60% of the budgets of the nation’s, hospitals, and in the case of the Dario Contreras Hospital this percentage equal some RD$12 million pesos a month, according to the trauma hospital’s director José Aponte.
Directors of the Alcohol Cluster at the Ministry of Public Health reject the decision by the Ministry of Interior and Police to remove the drinking restrictions imposed on alcoholic consumption during the Christmas holidays. Based on the publications of the National Statistical Office (ONE) that shows that the total alcohol-related traffic accident deaths in the Dominican Republic during 2016, 2017 and as of September 2018 total 1414, with Sundays averaging 2,019 fatalities during that period.
Elias Tejada, the representative of the cluster, said that before relaxing the restrictions on drinking hours on weekends and during the Christmas season, authorities at the ministry should consider the data that shows that just between Friday and Sunday 551 persons died from alcohol in 2016. In 2017, the number was 404 fatalities and as of September of this year there have been 459 fatalities directly related to alcoholic consumption. In total and by year, accident fatalities related to alcohol consumption totaled 1049 in 2016 of which 250 occurred on Sundays. In 2017 the statistics show a total of 788 fatalities of which 144 occurred on Sunday, and during the first nine months of 2018, alcohol has caused 949 deaths of which 225 were on a Sunday.
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Diario Libre
26 November 2018
