- The Evansville-Vanderburgh County Traffic Safety Partnership will be participating in the annual nationwide ‘Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over‘ drunk driving enforcement campaign. Indiana’s high-visibility enforcement effort, also known as Operation Pull Over Blitz 87, begins today and will run through September 5, 2016.
- This drunk driving enforcement campaign will consist of saturation patrols and a DUI checkpoint as part of a comprehensive effort to curb drunk driving in August and through the Labor Day holiday weekend. Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Deputies, Evansville Police Officers and Indiana State Police Troopers within Vanderburgh County will join more than 250 state and local law enforcement agencies, and thousands more across the country, to conduct high-visibility patrols aimed at discouraging drinking and driving. Research has shown that high-visibility enforcement like the ‘Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over’ campaign reduces drunk driving fatalities by as much as 20 percent.
According to to the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute (ICJI), in 2015 there were 4,828 alcohol-impaired collisions in Indiana, resulting in 92 fatalities. This is a 26.5 percent decrease in the number of alcohol-impaired collisions, and a 9 percent decrease in resulting fatalities, from 2014. In 2015 a total of 12 hoosier motorcyclists were killed in alcohol-impaired collisions, a decrease of 20 percent from 2014. Motorcyclists face an increased threat from impaired drivers due to the lack of crash protection inherent to motorcycles as well as their lower visibility.
Sheriff Dave Wedding stated, “By participating in this nationwide enforcement effort, we hope to make Labor Day safer for Vanderburgh County motorists. If you have doubts about your sobriety, we ask that you do not get behind the wheel or climb on your motorcycle.â€
On this Labor Day if you do choose to drive impaired, you will be arrested. No warnings. No excuses.
Funding for local impaired driving enforcement is provided by the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute through a grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
