Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

Well, it is Christmas Eve, a day in which many are tucked away, cozily inside, but also a day in which maybe you've gotten to a Christmas party at someone's house, or recently

you've gone to a party after work, had a glass of eggnog or two or some champagne, and then

perhaps, or a lot of people do, get into their car and drive home. The holiday season is the

high season for drunk driving. Between Thanksgiving and New Year's and yes, Christmas,

you see huge spikes in drunk driving, drunk driving between Thanksgiving and New Year's and yes, Christmas, you see huge spikes in drunk driving, drunk driving fatalities and so forth. So let's go to 1982, where this really became

a critical issue, and it is the origins of National Impaired Driving Prevention Month.

December is National Impaired Driving Prevention Month,

when this country really did start to make a dent in the scourge of drunk driving.

And it represents a fascinating mix of grassroots efforts, community groups, government programs,

and good old-fashioned personal responsibility. Who knew? All of those things can work together if the issue is important enough, it seems.

So here, as always, to discuss Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of

Wesley.

Hello there.

Hello, Jody.

Hey there.

Yeah, we are interested in this as a kind of example of how lots of different forces and groups

can come together to address a critical issue, something that doesn't feel like

we're very good at these days. But why don't we actually just go to like some of the context

for how bad it is in December when it comes to drunk driving stats and kind of people getting

behind the wheel when they're a little buzzed or impaired.

...