There are few things more sobering than pondering the carnage caused by drunken drivers. Seldom has that been more visibly illustrated than by a Christmas Eve crash one year ago that took six young lives.

For the past year, six extended families and six circles of friends have been mourning, healing and slowly picking up the pieces of their lives. Hundreds of people were affected by the violent, split-second accident.

And, over the past year, police have been trying to unravel the chain of events that bitterly snuffed out six young lives. As 2007 ends, one adult man has been charged with allowing a group of youngsters to drink at his home, and a 19-year-old girl stands accused of allowing a drunken 20-year-old man, who died in the crash, to operate her car.

With the notoriously dangerous New Year’s weekend and holiday just days away, it is worth considering some statistics.

A 2002 study by two professors at Harvard University determined that between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. on New Year’s Day, 25 percent of drivers on the road have been drinking. That means, in effect, that if you are driving down the highway, the operator of every fourth car coming the other way is, on average, under the influence of alcohol.

During those hours, 60 percent of all fatal accidents are caused by drivers who have been drinking, according to their research. Overall, their research found, alcohol is a factor in 30 percent of fatal crashes, resulting in about 40,000 deaths per year.

The professors considered that there are two types of impaired drivers: Those who are legally drunk, and those who have been drinking but have not reached the legal definition of drunkenness.

And it’s unnerving to consider what they found: legally drunken drivers were 13 times more likely as a sober drivers to cause an accident. Drivers who had been drinking, but who were not technically drunk, were still seven times more dangerous than a sober driver.

The conclusion is obvious: even one or two drinks drastically increases the likelihood that a driver will be involved in an accident.

Early this week, groups of young people gathered on Route 122 in Poland, at the site of last year’s tragic accident, to remember their friends and two others killed on that spot last year.

For the families of those killed, Christmas Eve will always have a different, sadder meaning than it does for the rest of us.

Last week, an anti-drunken driving film was approved to become part of Maine’s driver’s education curriculum. “Smashed,” produced by the Lewiston Youth Advisory Council, will now be used in training young drivers statewide.

“The tragedy of losing a young person to any accident, but especially one involving alcohol, has many painful and lasting effects on the people who are left behind,” said Maine Driver Education Program Manager Eric Bellevance.

Before you drink and drive this year, please take time to think beyond that night, to consider those you love and who love you, and to designate a non-drinking driver.