Provided by the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office:
A suspected DUI driver blows into a portable breath test at a checkpoint in Newtown Township earlier this year.
Credit: Tom Sofield/NewtownPANow.com
Labor Day weekend reminds us of how hard we all work for our money.
So why throw those earnings away on DUI lawyers, fines, court costs, soaring insurance premiums and lost hours on the job? Stay sober behind the wheel, fellow workers!
Helping to remind drivers of just that – and to arrest those who choose to drive while impaired – will be additional officers in at least eight Bucks County municipalities this holiday weekend.
The extra patrols in Bensalem, Doylestown, Middletown, New Britain, Newtown, Upper Southampton, Warrington and Warwick townships will be funded through a continuing federal safety grant administered through the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
On Friday night, Middletown, Newtown and Warrington will have two additional officers in their townships patrolling for DUI infractions. Bensalem, New Britain, Upper Southampton and Warwick each will have one additional officer.
On Saturday night, Middletown and Warrington again will have two extra officers for DUI enforcement, while Bensalem, Doylestown, New Britain, Upper Southampton and Warwick will have one each.
The added patrols will be in effect from about 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. each day. All drivers found to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs will be arrested.
Not only are DUIs expensive for drivers, the human cost is especially high on Labor Day. It was Pennsylvania’s deadliest holiday weekend in 2014. Twenty-four people died in 858 crashes over the Labor Day weekend two years ago, according to PennDOT.
The dangers are even greater this year, as an improving economy leads to more driving and more crashes. Newly released national statistics for 2015 show a 7.2 percent increase in deaths from crashes on U.S. roadways last year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
That is the largest percentage increase in nearly 50 years. A total of 35,092 people lost their lives in U.S. crashes last year, 10,265 of them in crashes involving alcohol-impaired driving.
Alcohol increases the odds that a crash will result in death. Alcohol use was involved in just 13 percent of all Pennsylvania holiday crashes in 2014, yet alcohol-related crashes accounted for 41 percent of those who were killed.
Bucks County was one of six counties in Pennsylvania that had 12 or more alcohol-related traffic deaths for all of 2014.
This weekend’s added patrols are the sixth in a year-long series of enforcement actions undertaken by Bucks County’s DUI Task Force. The task force has conducted roving DUI patrols on Thanksgiving Eve, New Year’s Eve, Memorial Day weekend and July 4 weekend, as well as a DUI checkpoint in Newtown Township on St. Patrick’s Day.
During the July 4th weekend patrols in Bensalem, 69 stops were made, resulting in three arrests for DUI, three arrests for drug possession, and 33 citations.
For more than a decade, the Bucks County task force has used Impaired Driving Program grants to help keep motorists safe during high-risk holidays and weekends. The grants, which help pay the added salary of officers who participate in the patrols, as well the costs of equipment used in DUI enforcement, are provided through PennDOT and NHTSA, in cooperation with the PA DUI Association.
