| State patrol, St. Robert, Waynesville team up for holiday DWI enforcement |
By: Darrell Todd Maurina
|
Posted: Thursday, July 2, 2009 11:58 pm
|
PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (July 2, 2009) — Local law enforcement personnel want to make sure that those who want to drink this weekend in Pulaski County don’t get behind the wheel of a car.
Representatives of three different police agencies have announced in recent weeks that they’ll be conducting drunk driving patrols over the Independence Day weekend. At Thursday afternoon’s meeting of the Waynesville Police and Emergency Services Committee, Police Chief Bob Carter said his agency, the St. Robert Police Department, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol will all be conducting drunk driving enforcement activities in their jurisdictions, staggered at different times during the weekend beginning Friday.
“We wish everybody a good holiday, but at the same time we are going to do a DWI saturation patrol that we signed up for with the state,” Carter said. “Don’t quote me on the times, but I know ours are offset so we can assist each other if need be.”
St. Robert police issued a press release in mid-June indicating that they’ll be participating in the statewide effort as well.
“It’s never worth the risk to drive while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Drivers could lose their license, pay large fines, or worse of all, cause a tragic loss of life,” said St. Robert Police Chief Curtis Curenton in a prepared statement.
According to Curenton’s press release, in the year 2007, a total of 243 people died in more than 7,780 alcohol-related traffic crashes. That’s an average of one death or injury every 1.7 hours.
Earlier in the month, Capt. Lee Ann H. Kenley, the Rolla-based Troop I commander for the Missouri State Highway Patrol, said that a DWI saturation patrol will be conducted in Pulaski County. That operation took place on June 13, with five troopers assigned who stopped 48 different vehicles, resulting in two citations for drunk driving, 12 for speeding, three for hazardous moving violations, two for driver’s license violations, and four misdemeanor drug violations, in addition to 50 warnings.
“(I) would like to remind motorists that in the past, approximately 25 percent of all fatality traffic crashes on Missouri’s highways were alcohol-related,” Kenley said in her prepared statement urging Missourians to “be responsible and to realize that alcohol and vehicles are a deadly mix.”
Click here to comment for local opinion |
|
Printer-friendly format
|
|
