Dangerous roads

Nearly 17,000 people are killed each year not because the road's too narrow, not even because they're speeding, but because someone decided to drive after drinking. Dona Rose was neither a drinker nor a driver, but 25 years ago, a drunk driver changed her life forever.

Dona Rose: “I went through the windshield and suffered a severe head injury and was in a coma for six months and not expected to recover.”

She eventually woke up from her coma, but at age 25, Dona had to re-learn everything: how to walk, how to eat. Much of her memory, her past, was lost. It was as if she were a child again.

Mankiewicz: “When you're that age you don't think too much about the future. But back then, what did you want to do with your life?”

Rose: “Probably marry you.”

I was thinking the same thing 40-some years ago. Dona Rose and I were nursery school sweethearts. Our lives went in different directions. She had wanted to be a ballerina. In college, she was a nationally-ranked gymnast. But today, even walking is a challenge. Dona's now lived half her life that way.

Mankiewicz: “That's all from the accident?

Rose: “Yeah… I'm really embarrassed about my lack of balance. My speech I think I can hide that a lot. Everything takes me longer than it might take you.”

As part of her therapy, Dona has become a very strong swimmer. But her path to recovery wasn't easy. At the time of her accident, Dona was engaged, but she says she pushed her fiancé away, because of her own depression.

Rose: “I really wanted somebody to kill me. Or I wanted to kill myself, but I couldn't think of any way to do that.”

Nearly half a million people are injured in DUI collisions each year.

Jim Gogek: “Drunken driving injuries and fatalities are a tragedy. We seem to as a nation to have forgotten this.”

Jim Gogek is with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, which has published studies on alcohol-related driving fatalities. The DUI death toll used to be as high as 30,000 per year before mandatory seatbelt laws were adopted in the 90s. But there has been little improvement since then, with annual DUI deaths stagnating at nearly 17,000. That's about 40 percent of all traffic deaths in the nation.

Our review of five years of federal crash data identified roads where you're likely to encounter a drunk driver. That search took us back for the third time to Maricopa County, Ariz. Three of its streets run through the fast-growing city of Phoenix. Broadway, Thomas and Indian School Roads are all on our list of dangerous roads.

Sgt. Joel Tranter is with the Phoenix police DUI unit. We joined him one night, as he searched for signs of impaired driving. It didn't take long.

Joel Tranter: “He's squealing his tires. He's splitting that lane right there. He's tailgating. He's driving reckless.  He's putting other people in a hazard out here.”

Sgt. Tranter stops and arrests the suspect, whom he says has a blood alcohol content of .172. That's more than twice Arizona's legal limit, which is .08. About an hour later, this suspect is struggling to walk a straight line and count his steps. His breath test may explain why. Police say it's .24.

And it's not hard to see why these streets attract so many drunk drivers, once you check out the number of bars and liquor stores.

But across the country, most drunk-driving fatalities occur on the freeways, because of the high volume of traffic and the high speeds. That's how busy interstates made our list, such as Palm Beach County Florida's I-95, the Harris County, Texas stretch of I-10, and the Cook County, Illinois section of I-94. But the San Diego County, California portion of I-5 is first on our list of dangerous roads.

Each year, 10,000 to 15,000 people are arrested for driving under the influence in San Diego County, an average of almost 35 a day. We rode with the California Highway Patrol for one night and saw 6 DUI arrests. Just why is I-5 so dangerous? One reason is that it ends in Tijuana, a Mecca for bar hopping and partying. To drink in the U.S., you have to be 21, but in Mexico you only need to be 18.

While there, we asked people before they headed home, to volunteer for a breath test. We brought along Keith Nothacker, a distributor of breathalyzers, to properly apply the tests. Most people walked right past me. If they were drunk, they apparently didn't want to know how just how drunk.

We also met a group of 18 and 19-year-old college students, who agreed to let us follow them on their night out in Tijuana.

Mankiewicz: “Am I right in thinking that the reason you guys come down here is because you can drink here when you're 18 and in the United States you have to wait until you're 21?”

Jack: “I'll agree.”

Jordan: “Yeah, there's really no other reason to be down here except to party.”

And party they did, until about 4 a.m. Along the way we learn that one guy is the designated driver. But is he sober?

Mankiewicz: “How much have you had to drink?”

Jack: “I'd put it between somewhere between 18 and 23.”

Mankiewicz: “18 to 23 shots?”

Jack: “Twenty-three actual beers… shots.”

It's time to put the breathalyzer to work.

Mankiewicz: “You are legally drunk.”

Jack: “Oh, real-- thank you.”

He thinks it's funny, but he's almost double the legal limit. A common belief is that you can tell if you're too drunk to drive, but experts say that's not true. You can become impaired after just one drink. We test another one of the college kids, Jordan.

At .05, he's under the legal limit, and they decide to let Jordan drive home. All four promised us that they'd sleep in the car for a couple of hours before hitting the highway -- but 10 minutes later, they were on the road.

Jim Gogek: “Most of the laws that we need are already in place. These are real lives. One of the problems is we used to know this. But now we've become complacent about this. “

My friend Dona Rose is fighting that complacency. She now speaks to students about her experience, how one person's decision to drive drunk took away so much of her life. The ripples from that accident spread a long way, affecting more than just her balance or memory. Her depression lifted, but she never married or had children. Her dreams evaporated in the instant of that collision. But that trauma also gave Dona's life a purpose.

Rose: “It's really the only thing I can do, I think. And because I get such feedback, and I do it well.”

Mankiewicz: “You think you've saved lives?”

Rose: “I hope so… And I don't ask them not to drink. I just tell my story. And they said they won't ever drink and drive.”

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