During holiday season, LI needs to fight DWI

Memorial gardens. A new ignition-lock law. A notorious case in which a wrong-way drunken driver killed a limousine driver and a flower girl. And now, a police officer on his way home from work dies after an alleged drunken driver traveling the wrong way on the Northern State Parkway plows into his car.

To be sure, there's been progress in the war against drunken drivers. Still, with each victory it seems there is a battle lost.

But that should only deepen the region's resolve to fight, especially since we're likely to see even more deaths through the holidays.

What to do? It's pretty simple, really. Even as local police get ready to catch as many drunken holiday-time drivers as they can.

All it takes is four steps:

Have a plan if you're going to enjoy a few drinks.

Don't drive drunk.

Don't let a friend (or an enemy) drive drunk.

Take their car keys if you have to.

"We talk about gangs and violence, terrorism and violence but when Uncle George drinks and gets in the car with the potential to cause violence . . . too many of us do nothing," said Thomas McCoy, executive director of Long Island MADD.

Make no mistake. McCoy was angry Monday.

"Here we are with an exhibit to bring attention to the issue of drunk driving before the holidays and then, bam, in your face, there's news of another wrong-way driver and another death," he said Monday. The driver in the latest crash has pleaded not guilty to DWI.

Kathleen Rice, the Nassau County district attorney, has aggressively made fighting drunken driving one of her mandates.

"The sad part is that deaths from drunken driving are preventable," she said Monday. "Someone could be turning a corner and get killed. It's random and people need to know that the deaths are violent - a 7-year-old [Katie Flynn] being decapitated, a father working two jobs being burned alive in his car because he couldn't get out - and they are all preventable."

One thing to consider: As of last August, first-time offenders convicted of DWI are now required to install ignition-lock devices in their cars. They are expensive. And anyone using the vehicle will have their sobriety checked before it will start.

And another: Most people can't see themselves brandishing a gun and robbing a bank. It's an act of violence that seems almost unimaginable.

But when it comes to drinking and driving, as Rice pointed out, it's more subjective, probably because most people, at some time in their lives, have taken to the wheel with a buzz, and made it on home.

That was luck.

But tell that to the families destroyed by drinking and driving.

Most drunken driving deaths occur during the 110 days between Memorial and Labor days; the second highest number occur between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

'Tis the season - 'tis always the season - to save lives. To stop preventable deaths. To fight drunken driving.