The United States Department of Transportation unleashed a new campaign entitled “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” on Aug. 19.
The ad campaign aims at cracking down nationwide on drunk drivers and will be circulating until 2016.
As a part of the campaign, police officers nationwide are more heavily enforcing drunk driving violations. This crackdown will last through Labor Day weekend.
More than 10,000 police departments nationwide will participate in this campaign as a way to reduce impaired driving in the U.S. during the final week of summer. The law enforcement departments will be doubling their forces on the streets to make certain that they catch and arrest drunk drivers.
According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the crackdowns are usually during a specific period of time each year. There are multiple other major crackdowns by law enforcement officers nationwide, such as one in December known as “3D Month,” which shares the same goals as the crackdown this week in spotting and arresting impaired drivers.
The Columbia Police Department not only doubled circulating police units, but also administered a sobriety checkpoint this past weekend on the 700 block of College Avenue, Sgt. Curtis Perkins said. At the checkpoint, officers can pull over any vehicle they desire. The statistics from the weekend were taken in Columbia, but none are being released until the end of the three-week campaign.
“College kids know that the police cannot catch everybody, so I am sure that the ones who have driven drunk before and have never gotten caught in the past will keep going for it,” junior Kevin Crocker said.
Crocker said the campaign would be effective within the general population, but he was doubtful as to whether it would stop students from getting behind the wheel while under the influence.
Most drunk driving accidents occur between the hours of midnight and 3 a.m., with one in three drivers being between the ages of 21 and 24, according to NHTSA. The second most common times for drunk driving accidents is between the hours of 9 p.m. and midnight and 3 and 6 a.m. and occur with drivers between the ages of 25 and 34 years old.
The campaign is almost solely focused on eliminating nighttime drunk driving in order to cut down on the number of deaths and injuries.
“I think that drunk driving is the worst and most selfish thing that you can do,” junior Bridget Shields said. “Getting behind the wheel when you are drunk and not letting someone else drive you is terrible.”
The DOT advertising will feature police officers posed as being “invisible,” yet they will still be able to “see you … before you see them,” according to the campaign’s slogan. These ads will be running nationwide in major media markets for five years. The purpose of this advertising campaign is to depict to citizens that police officers are not only observant, but pervasive as well.
Intoxicated driving accidents take a life every 23 minutes, according to an NHTSA news release. They are one of the leading causes of injury and death on roads throughout America. Drunk driving is dangerous, not only for intoxicated drivers themselves but also for innocent people on the roads.