Signs show faces of DUI deaths

The Associated Press

YAKIMA — As the holiday party season begins, the state will warn motorists in a heartbreaking way of the often irrevocable consequences of drinking and driving.

Two new road signs are going up in the Yakima Valley, featuring huge photographs of two people — a 21-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl — killed by drunken drivers.

Similar signs were put up on Highway 97A between Wenatchee and Chelan last year, and new signs are planned for Skagit County, probably in January.

The program could expand to other counties, including Snohomish, that help establish corridor safety projects along stretches of state highways with high DUI and accident rates.

"It’s just kind of a snowball rolling downhill," said Dick Nuse, program manager for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. "I’m sure in the next 12 months to 2 years they’ll be all over the state."

The photographs are a way to remind people that the death toll from drunken driving is more than just a statistic.

"The impact is sure to be incredible, and we have to thank the families for their courage," said Lt. Gov. Brad Owen at a news conference in Yakima on Friday.

Minnie Alvarado’s 21-year-son, Andy, died in a rollover crash on May 21, 2000. An off-duty Grandview police officer, Albert D. Brito Jr., was driving the pickup truck in which Andy Alvarado was a passenger. Brito’s blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash was .15 percent, nearly twice the .08 legal limit. Brito was sentenced to two years in prison for vehicular homicide.

The signs are 6 feet high and 12 feet wide. The photograph of Andy Alvarado appears on a blue background with his name and age and the words: "Killed by a drunk driver." Next to that, on a yellow background, is the warning: "Caution — drunk drivers are out there!"

Every time Minnie Alvarado drives Highway 97 near Toppenish, she’ll see the photo of her son, with sparkling brown eyes, a sweet smile and a dark goatee.

"It’ll be hard, but if it’s going to help save another young man, another young person, it will be good," said Alvarado, who lives in Mabton. "I know he’d be proud of this."

The sign with a photograph of 12-year-old LaShell Georgeanna Davis, a sunny-looking blond with flower barrettes in her hair, will go up on Interstate 82 north of Sunnyside. Her mother, Sheryl Maloy-Davis of Grandview, will probably see it often.

"I think it’s going to make me cry every time," she said.

LaShell and her father, Richard Davis, were killed on I-90 near Cle Elum on March 25, 2000, when their car collided with a vehicle being driven the wrong way down the freeway.

The other driver, Audrey Kishline of Woodinville, who founded a national organization called Moderation Management based on the premise that problem drinkers can learn to drink responsibly, had a blood-alcohol level of .26 percent at the time of the crash. She was sentenced to 4 1/2years in prison last August.

Every 33 minutes, someone in this country is killed in a crash where someone has been drinking or taking drugs.

From 1990-2000, more than 314,000 people in Washington state were cited for driving under the influence, according to the state Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

"This is an ongoing tragedy. If the statistics hold true, we’ll kill another two people … in drunk driving crashes in the Yakima Valley before the new year," said John Moffat, director of the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

The state Department of Transportation will leave the signs up about a year, then they will be taken down or moved to another location.

On Highway 97A, where similar signs were put up between Wenatchee and Chelan a year ago, the number of drunken driving crashes was cut in half and the overall collision rate went down 20 percent, the Washington Traffic Safety Commission said.

Washington is the second state in the nation to institute such a program. Rhode Island was the first.