Intensive summer long DUI enforcement begins Memorial Day Weekend

HARRISBURG — The unofficial start of summer kicks off this Memorial Day weekend with a renewed initiative to enforce the Commonwealth’s impaired driving laws, the Pennsylvania Driving Under the Influence Association announced Thursday. Both municipal and state police throughout the state will be out in force over the weekend with increased sobriety checkpoints, roving patrols and other under-the-influence related enforcement initiatives to ensure that our highways are safer from alcohol and drug impaired drivers. “As families begin the summer travel season this weekend, we want to keep them safe from impaired drivers,” said DUI Association Executive Director C. Stephen Erni. “Unfortunately, we are entering one of the deadliest times of the year on our highways. About thirty-eight percent of fatal impaired driving related crashes occur in the months of May, June, July, August and September.” Last year, 535 Pennsylvanians lost their lives as the result of over 12,863 impaired driving related crashes. During the 2007 Memorial Day weekend travel period,492 impaired driving crashes took the lives of 17 people making this holiday time the third worst, preceded only by Thanksgiving and Labor Day weekends. Fifty specially trained state and municipal Drug Recognition Expert officers will be working with law enforcement across the Commonwealth to evaluate drivers suspected of being under-the-influence of controlled substances. Since the implementation of the Drug Recognition Expert program in 2004, driving under the influence of controlled substance charges have grown exponentially each year. Last year alone, about 6,600 drugged driving charges were filed against impaired drivers in Pennsylvania. A total of 53,515 DUI-related arrests were made in 2007. “We have zero tolerance for impaired drivers,” said Erni. “Every available officer will be out on the roadways in an effort to reach our goal of no traffic related fatalities.”