CLEARFIELD – Drunk driving is one of America’s deadliest crimes. In fact, during 2004, nearly 13,000 people were killed in highway crashes involving an impaired driver or motorcycle operator with an illegal blood-alcohol content of .08 percent or higher. The picture for motorcycle operators is particularly bleak. Forty-one percent of the 1,672 motorcycle operators who died in single-vehicle crashes in 2004 had BAC levels of .08 percent or higher.
That is why the Clearfield County DUI Strike Force announced they will be joining with thousands of other law enforcement and highway safety agencies across the nation during August and the Labor Day holiday to launch an aggressive new crackdown on impaired drivers called Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.
“Make no mistake. Our message is simple,” said a release from the Clearfield County DUI Strike Force.
“No matter what you drive — passenger car, pickup, sport utility vehicle or motorcycle — if we catch you driving impaired, we will arrest you. No exceptions. No excuses.”
Officers will be out in force conducting sobriety checkpoints, saturation patrols and using undercover officers to get more drunk drivers off the road.
Driving with a BAC of .08 percent or higher is illegal in every state. Although drunk driving fatalities across the nation slightly declined in 2003 and 2004, alcohol-related fatalities are projected to increase in 2005. Moreover, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, more than 1.4 million people were arrested for driving under the influence during 2004.
The strike force said drunk drivers not only risk killing themselves, they risk jail time, the loss of their driver’s license, higher insurance rates, attorney fees, time away from work and dozens of other expenses.