• Major holiday season sales at all the major retailers.
• Christmas trees, lights, and decorations all around.
• Holiday decorating and cooking ideas in all the papers and all over TV.
• Families making travel plans to visit distant friends and relatives for the holidays.
• Increasing numbers of drunken driving accidents.

The Dallas paper just announced a major DWI enforcement initiative to curb drunk driving and the terrible toll taken by drunken driving accidents over the holiday season. The DWI enforcement initiative results from cooperative efforts between the Dallas Police Department, the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, TxDOT, and MADD.

The Dallas initiative, which continues through January 3, 2012, dedicates more law enforcement officers to patrol the streets with the single goal of pulling more drunken drivers off those streets before they can cause accident injuries or fatalities.

MADD says that almost 17,000 people die and another 500,000 receive injuries from alcohol-related accidents each year. The DWI accident numbers increase during the holidays, when more people are driving drunk following office parties and other holiday celebrations.

Houston papers are curiously silent regarding similar stepped up DWI enforcement initiatives by Houston regional law enforcement. Yet the Houston regional area leads the nation in the number of DWI-related fatal accidents.

Maybe we have a stealth initiative going here in the Houston area. Or maybe not. The Houston-Galveston Area Council, a region-wide association of local governments, applied for a STEP grant from TxDOT back in September. The Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP) grant was requested to fund overtime for officers conducting high visibility DWI enforcement programs on three-day holiday weekends including Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.

Well, Thanksgiving is nearly upon us and news outlets have been silent regarding stepped up DWI enforcement in the Houston regional area. Perhaps the STEP grant request was turned down. Or perhaps it’s still under consideration; grant proposals rarely receive quick responses.

Your safety during the holidays remains at risk on Houston area roads more than in any other area. So let’s hope Houston area law enforcement agencies step up DWI enforcement to protect everyone’s safety on our regional roads during this holiday season.