This holiday season, let us celebrate the gift of safer roads.

Just two days before Christmas, a new law took effect in Pennsylvania that increases penalties for individuals who repeatedly drive under the influence. In October, the General Assembly passed a bill — known as Act 153 — to establish the state’s first felony for DUI that was later signed by Gov. Tom Wolf.

Prior to the law’s passage, Pennsylvania was one of only four states where a DUI could not be prosecuted as a felony.

Under the new law, a person charged with a third DUI offense within a decade who has at least twice the state’s legal limit for alcohol — 0.08 percent — or a fourth offense at any level would face stiffer fines and penalties, such as mandatory jail time or longer sentences for drivers who unintentionally cause another person’s death due to a repeat DUI violation. Previously, the state had treated repeat DUI offenses as misdemeanors that had smaller penalties and fewer consequences.

Now, the minimum prison sentence for causing a death while driving drunk is five years — or seven years, if the driver had been convicted of two or more prior DUIs. Previously, the punishment was a three-year sentence.

The law can’t come soon enough. According to the Pennsylvania DUI Association, 293 people died in crashes that involved drinking and driving last year, while a total of 28 accidents involving alcohol occurred each day during that year, resulting in more than 10,300 alcohol-related crashes. And 18 percent of fatal crashes with drivers between the ages of 16 and 20 involved drinking.

Pennlive.com notes that there are approximately 250,000 drivers in Pennsylvania with repeat DUI offenses and about 140,000 drivers whose licenses have been suspended for driving under the influence.

The one piece of good news is that alcohol-related crashes have been on the decline in recent years, dropping from more than 11,000 in 2013 to 10,346 in 2017, according to the DUI association. But there are still a large number of people making the reckless decision to get behind the wheel after having too much to drink. Even worse, there is a disturbingly large number of people who do so repeatedly, having not learned from the slaps on the wrist they have received during previous DUI arrests.

The new law enacted last weekend sends a stronger message. Willfully endangering others as a result of selfish behavior should not be tolerated in Pennsylvania, and those who chose to do so will be punished accordingly.