Columbus Police Department has received a $7,500 grant to fund DUI checkpoints throughout the city over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
The grant came from the Mississippi Office of Highway Safety as part of the national campaign “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over,” which aims to reduce alcohol-related car crashes and deaths in 2017 through grants like this.
With the state’s grant, CPD will set up sobriety and license checkpoints in high-traffic parts of the city, like Highway 82 and Highway 45, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night between this week and the end of January, Assistant Police Chief Fred Shelton said.
“They expect us to make arrests,” he said.
About four officers per night will work overtime, manning the checkpoints from about 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. each night. None of these officers will be pulled from regular patrols, Shelton said, ensuring the patrol units will be fully manned also. The grant will pay for 310 overtime officer hours, he added.
“(This is) above and beyond what we would normally do,” he said. “And that’s why the state gave incentive to departments to do this. We know everybody’s short and everybody’s got a tight budget. But this is a way to supplement that.”
Officers are specifically looking for impaired drivers, not necessarily drunken drivers, Shelton said. This includes drivers who are tipsy, impaired by narcotics or have abused medication.
“I don’t know (how many drinks make) you drunk,” he said. “…We’re more concerned if the alcohol impaired your ability to drive and drive safely because what’s important is it’s your life and the lives of other people on the road.”
He added the checkpoints will also encourage drivers to follow the speed limit, wear their seatbelts and have their drivers’ licenses.
The campaign aims to make the public aware of the dangers of drinking and driving through high-visibility enforcement along with public educational efforts, according to a press release from the CPD.
The statewide goal is to reduce alcohol related crashes by 2 percent, from 2,442 in 2015 to 2,393 in 2017, and fatal crashes by 5 percent, from 142 in 2015 to 135 in 2017, according to the release.
On Friday and again on Dec. 31, CPD will coordinate with other law enforcement agencies, including Mississippi Highway Patrol, Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office and Starkville Police Department, to catch those driving under the influence or practicing other unsafe driving habits like riding without a seatbelt or texting while driving, Shelton said. SPD will loan the CPD a DUI bus, which contains equipment for testing suspects and a holding cell to take offenders to jail, Shelton said.
The penalty for a first-time DUI is a $1,020 fine and the possibility of loss of license for six months, said City Public Information Officer Joe Dillon. The second DUI carries a $1,319 fine and the loss of license for a year, while the third is considered a felony.
As education and rewards for safe drivers are also part of the campaign, Shelton said he plans to work with local restaurants to offer incentives in the form of free food or nonalcoholic drinks to designated drivers as a way to encourage them to avoid drinking when out with friends.
“Driving is a pleasure,” Shelton said. “However, if you’re distracted and not paying attention to what you’re doing, you could hurt yourself or someone else on the road.”
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