Police target drunk drivers in end-of-summer push

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2006

by Margie Hyslop

Staff Writer

Drivers who drink are more likely to face arrest over the next few weeks as police across the state, region and nation increase sobriety patrols.

The nationwide initiative began Friday, but motorists are being warned with advertisements in English and Spanish on television and radio.

The spots present common scenarios and the slogan: ‘‘Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.”

‘‘Always designate a non-drinking driver in advance,” said Maryland State Police superintendent Thomas E. ‘‘Tim” Hutchins, who appeared in Rockville last week with federal officials and state and local police chiefs to announce the coordinated crackdown leading up to Labor Day.

‘‘Drunk driving is an epidemic that’s the scourge of this country,” said Col. Jim Champagne, chairman of the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, during the announcement held at the Montgomery County Police and Fire Training Academy.

‘‘It’s time for this country to quit saying, ‘That’s old Joe, he’s down at the bar and he had one too many gin and tonics,’” said Champagne, a member of the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission.

Maryland State Police will step up use of sobriety checkpoints and blanket patrols, Hutchins said.

Congress gave the National Highway Safety Administration $11 million for an ad campaign aimed primarily at men between 21 and 34, the demographic group deemed most likely to be involved in fatal drunk driving crashes.

Data for 2005 indicated that one-third of drivers who were in fatal crashes and had a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher were men 21 to 34 years old. Men between 35 and 44 were the second largest group, at 26 percent.

Only Utah outpaced Maryland last year in reducing deaths in crashes involving drivers with a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher — the level at which a person is declared legally intoxicated in most jurisdictions, including Maryland.

In Maryland the number of deaths in crashes involving drivers with .08 blood alcohol level is down more than 23 percent (to 161 total), but the news was not as good in the rest of the region.

Drunk driving deaths involving a vehicle operator with a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher increased more than 30 percent (to 17) in the District of Columbia and dropped nearly 9 percent in Virginia (to 263).

In Delaware and Pennsylvania drunk driving deaths were up 35.9 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively, and in West Virginia the number remained the same.

Montgomery County Police is using a $25,000 grant from the State Highway Administration to bring in about 12 extra officers for enforcement, said Capt. Thomas C. Didone, director of the department’s special operations division.

SHA is investing more than $2 million in efforts to stop and prevent drunk driving throughout the year.