By Greg Lehman and Gilbert Gutierrez III
Daily Titan Staff Writers

And Damon Lowney
Daily Titan Asst. News Editor

A beautiful corner in Downtown Fullerton. Photo by Ron Fu/Daily Titan Staff Photographer

A fatal accident involving a Cal State Fullerton student and four others recently made headlines only months after the crash that killed Angels baseball player Nick Adenhart and CSUF student Courtney Stewart.

CSUF student Jessica Shekell was driving the wrong way in the FasTrak lane on the 91 freeway early in the morning on Oct. 26, causing a head-on collision. Toxicology reports have not been released.

In light of these recent high-profile accidents, how much of a problem does driving under the influence pose to college students?

In 2007, the U.S. Surgeon General estimated that approximately 5,000 persons under the age of 21 die from alcohol-related injuries involving underage drinking each year.

According to CollegeDrinkingPrevention.gov, 1,700 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes. 599,000 students in this age group are unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol.

When asked if Fullerton, a city with over 50,000 college students, suffers from a higher rate of drunk drivers than other cities, CHP Officer Denise Quesada said, “I can’t say Fullerton stands out more than any other city. We all know that colleges attract parties, so you might see drinking there.” Perhaps proving her point, there was not a single alcohol related citation or arrest made by CSUF police on Halloween night or in the early morning after, according to the CSUF Police Department’s cop blotter.

Regardless of reported DUI activity, law enforcement is always on the lookout for drunk drivers and is ready to step in and stop potential drunk-driving accidents before they occur.

“The best way to avoid becoming a statistic or spending the night in jail is to be responsible and … designate a non-drinking driver ahead of time,” said CHP Officer Raymus Payton in an e-mail interview. But as is sometimes the case, plans slip through the cracks and then “It’s the job of the CHP and law enforcement … to remove drunk drivers from the road before they injure or kill someone,” he said.

So how does law enforcement go about removing drunk-drivers from public roads?

“Officers look for certain vehicle movements that may indicate difficulty in operating a vehicle safely,” Payton said. “These include but are not limited to: weaving, … excessive speed, sudden braking for no apparent reason, traveling significantly slower that the flow of traffic and driving completely through stop signs and/or red lights.”

If drivers violate these laws, “We’re going to stop them for that and check to see if they’re impaired,” said CHP Officer Jennifer Hink. “What we do is we go out and we just enforce the traffic laws.”

But there is also work done behind the scenes to help prevent future generations from driving under the influence.

Before teens receive their driver’s license, Hink said that law enforcement reaches out to children as early as junior high school to warn them about the dangers of driving under the influence. This is continued through high school with programs such as Every Fifteen Minutes, and “going into the high schools and speaking to teens about the risks of being in the car while under the influence or with somebody that’s under the influence,” she said.

There are also ways to protect yourself from impaired drivers.

“The best defense against a DUI driver is wearing a seat belt,” Payton said. In the case of the recent fatal accident involving Shekell, the victims of the accident were not wearing seat belts, he said. Two of the victims died in that accident, and the other two were injured. He said, “If you have to get out of you car on the shoulder, slide over and get out on the passenger side” because you want to be out of impaired drivers’ unpredictable trajectories. “Never change a tire on the shoulder of the freeway,” Payton said.

Civilians can play a part in keeping the roads safe as well.

“We encourage motorists to act on their sighting of a suspected drunk driver by calling 911,” Payton said. “CHP and other law enforcement agencies have joined to promote the use of 911 in this fashion because it can result in a timely enforcement response.” Just be prepared to report a description of the vehicle, a license plate number, location and direction of travel, he said.