Point Borough Police Start Aggressive Campaign To Get Drunk Drivers Off The Road

Get a cab. Find a designated driver.

But whatever you do, don’t drive drunk.

That’s the message Point Pleasant Capt. Robert Lokerson has for anyone thinking of driving while intoxicated year round. But starting Aug. 21, borough police will join the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s campaign ”Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over.”

The 20-day crackdown runs through Aug. 21 through Sept. 7 across the country. That means zero tolerance for drunk driving, Lokerson said.

“Increased state and national messaging about the dangers of driving drunk, coupled with checkpoints and increased officers on the road, aim to drastically reduce the toll of drunk driving,” he said.

There were 10,076 people killed in drunk–driving crashes, in 2013, almost a third of all traffic fatalities. Thirty-eight percent of crash fatalities on Labor Day weekend that year involved drunk drivers with blood alcohol concentrations of .08 or higher, amounting to 161 lives lost.

“And we’re not just talking about a little bit of alcohol, either,” Lokerson said. “More than a quarter (27%) of the crash fatalities that occurred on Labor Day weekend involved drivers with BACs of .15 or higher—almost twice the illegal per limit. Too many people think their actions don’t affect anybody else. They know it’s illegal. They know it’s wrong. But they do it anyway – they make decisions as if those statistics just can’t happen to them,”

Of the 10,076 people who were killed in impaired-driving crashes in 2013, 65 percent were the drunk drivers themselves. Those 6,515 drunk drivers planned on making it to their destinations, but they didn’t, he said.

It’s illegal to drive in every state with a BAC of .08 or higher.

“The number of people who are still drinking and driving is unacceptable,” Lokerson said. “Yes, we want to increase awareness for the campaign, but we want the effects to be permanent.”

NHTSA data shows that repeat offenders are an especially dangerous facet of the drunk-driving problem. In the month of August from 2009-2013, of the drunk drivers involved in fatal crashes, almost 1 out of 10 (8 percent) had already been convicted of at least one drunk-driving offense.

“All it takes is a little planning ahead,” he said. ”Designate a sober driver or call a cab. But whatever you do, don’t drink and drive. So this August and year-round, remember that there’s no excuse for drunk driving. If you choose to break the law, Point Pleasant Borough Police will see you before you see them.”

NHTSA has made it even easier to get home safely when you’ve been drinking. The new SaferRide mobile app (free from the iTunes store and Google Play), can help users call a taxi or a friend for a ride home. The app can even help you identify your location so you can be picked up.