San Diego

Drugs or alcohol were involved in 42% of San Diego traffic fatalities in 1989, the highest rate recorded since the department began keeping track three years ago, a police report released Thursday said.

Forty-four of the 105 traffic fatalities in 1989 (or 42%) were drug or alcohol related, contrasted with 32% in 1988 and 38% in 1987, according to the annual traffic report of fatal accidents.

The report also suggested that seat belts help prevent traffic fatalities. In 1989’s fatal accidents, 77% of the victims did not have their seat belts on, the report said, and 15% did. It could not be determined whether the remaining 8% of the victims wore seat belts because some vehicles had been engulfed by fire.

“Tests have shown that those wearing seat belts stand a better chance living through a terrible accident than those who do not wear seat belts,” police spokesman Bill Robinson said, discounting the idea that those who wear seat belts may just be more careful drivers.

The annual traffic report of fatal accidents said the number of San Diego fatal accidents in 1989 declined 12% to 98 from 112 in 1988. The number of fatalities in those accidents fell 8% to 105 from 114. The city averaged 101 fatal traffic incidences a year in the 1980s, including 1989.

San Diego police traffic analyst Donna Faller said, “When you take into consideration how the population has grown and that people are driving more, you find that we are driving better.”