Cops Announce 'Drive Sober' DWI Crackdown In Essex County, NJ

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — New Jersey’s largest annual drunk driving crackdown will soon return for 2016.

Law enforcement officers from the Essex County Sheriff’s Office will again be participating in the 2016 Labor Day Statewide “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign, according to a police news release. Beginning Aug. 19 and running through Sept. 5, local and state law enforcement officers will conduct sobriety checkpoints and roving patrols, looking for motorists who may be driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs.

The campaign looks to curtail impaired driving during the busy summer travel season, including the Labor Day holiday period, police stated.

“In 2015 in New Jersey, 562 lives were lost in motor vehicle crashes,” Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura stated. “In Essex County, 40 individuals, including 11 drivers, 26 pedestrians and three passengers, died in traffic accidents. The consumption of alcohol plays a major role in the many traffic fatalities. Persons who think they are okay to drive after a few drinks are wrong… dead wrong. Drinking impairs your judgment and reaction time while putting yourself, those in your car and everyone on the road in danger.”

There will be zero tolerance in Essex County throughout the 2016 campaign, Fontoura noted.

“If drivers are caught operating their vehicle while impaired they will be arrested,” he emphasized.

The New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety has provided grants to local law enforcement agencies throughout the state to run the two-week campaign. Essex County law enforcement agencies to receive grants for the 2016 effort include:

• Bloomfield PD - $5,000
• Essex County Sheriff’s Office - $5,000
• Fairfield PD - $5,000
• Irvington PD - $5,000
• Montclair PD - $5,000
• North Caldwell PD- $5,000
• South Orange PD - $5,000

“Sobriety checkpoints are an effective law enforcement tool involving the stopping of vehicles or a specific sequence of vehicles, at a predetermined fixed location to detect drivers impaired by alcohol and/or other drugs,” the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General states.

“These operations not only serve as a specific deterrent by arresting impaired drivers who pass through the checkpoints, but more importantly, as a general deterrent to persons who have knowledge of the operation. Sobriety checkpoints increase the perception of the risk of arrest, if they are adequately publicized and highly visible to the public.”

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