Lower Southampton Police Joining Bucks County Holiday DUI Patrol

It's time to arrange a designated driver or a ride home for this weekend, as Bucks County police departments are targeting potential DUI incidents starting Thursday night.

From 8 p.m. Thursday Dec. 15 to 1 a.m. Friday, Dec. 16, 15 officers from nine municipal police departments in Bucks County will conduct a DUI patrol extending from Old Lincoln Highway in Penndel Borough to the Business Route 1 corridor into Falls Township, ending at Tyburn Road, according to the District Attorney's Office

Participating will be officers from Bensalem, Falls, Lower Southampton, Middletown, Newtown, Solebury and Warrington Townships, and from Penndel and Quakertown Boroughs.

Holiday periods can exacerbate the number of drunken drivers on the road; last year, for example, 15 people died in 1,307 crashes during the weekend prior to Christmas in Pennsylvania, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Statewide, an average of almost one person per day died last year in alcohol-related crashes, according to PennDOT. Statistics also showed that alcohol-related crashes were 4.5 times more likely to result in death than were those in which alcohol was not involved.

“People tend to let their guard down when they are in the holiday spirit,” District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said in a statement. “More than ever, this is the time of year to be careful when celebrating the holidays with friends and family.

“Let’s all get home safely after celebrating,” Weintraub said. “Stay sharp; don’t drink and drive.”

Thursday night’s patrol will be the second in a yearlong series of enforcement actions funded by the DUI Task Force’s current grant, the DA's office said. The first, a saturation patrol conducted on Thanksgiving Eve along the Street Road corridor, resulted in seven arrests for DUI and four arrests for drug possession.

For more than a decade, the Bucks County task force has used Impaired Driving grants to help keep motorists safe during high-risk holidays and weekends, the DA's office said. The grants, which help pay the added salaries of officers who participate in the patrols, as well as the costs of equipment used in DUI enforcement, are provided through PennDOT and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in cooperation with the PA DUI Association.

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