Does Having Extra Police On Duty Help Prevent DUI Accidents?

The numbers are in after the Edwardsville Police Department completed its Fourth of July holiday overtime traffic enforcement period. This latest overtime enforcement period was from June 20 to July 5. The EPD recorded over 40 traffic violations, including one DUI offense. According to The Edwardsville Intelligencer, this was the EPD’s seventh overtime enforcement period, which are designed to help prevent DUI accidents.

Overtime enforcement periods, generally, occur over holidays and other special occasions when more drunk drivers are expected to be on the roads. During overtime enforcement periods, the EPD is allowed to have additional officers work traffic duty overtime. The next overtime enforcement period is scheduled to take place around Labor Day from August 22 to September 6.

What Are the Best Ways to Prevent DUI Accidents?

First, there are laws in place nationwide to deter drunk driving, such as:

• It is illegal to drive with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 percent or more.
• The minimum drinking age in the US is 21 years old. Therefore, if anyone under 21 years old is caught driving with any alcohol in his or her system, even if it is below the legal limit, there is zero tolerance from law enforcement.

In addition to drunk driving laws, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other organizations have several strategies to prevent DUI accidents, including:

• Having a designated driver with your group
• Sobriety checkpoints – Law enforcement sets up checkpoints at specific locations and stops vehicles that pass through the checkpoint to try to catch drunk drivers
• Taking public transportation, such as a city bus or train
• Teaching children in school about the dangers of drunk driving or riding in a car with a drunk driver
• Riding in a cab or using a ridesharing app, such as Uber or Lyft
• Ignition interlocks – This applies to convicted drunk drivers. It is a device installed on their car, which they have to breathe into before they can start the vehicle so it can measure their BAC. If their BAC is above a certain level, the car will not start.

Just because the drunk driver who hurt you or a loved one was arrested does not mean that you do not need to speak to an attorney. While drunk drivers can and should face criminal punishment, that does not help their victims with the financial hardships they will have to face following the wreck. To learn what options are available to victims and their families following a drunk driving accident, call our Missouri and Illinois personal injury attorneys to set up a free consultation today. The information provided by Walton Telken, LLC in this Blog is not intended to be legal advice, but merely provides general information related to common legal issues. This Blog, and the information contained within it, is Attorney Advertisement. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements. Past results afford no guarantee of future results. Every case is different and must be judged on its own merits.