Cape May County will Participate in Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over Campaign

The New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety has announced grants of nearly one million dollars to assist law enforcement agencies throughout New Jersey with the “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” 2015 Campaign.  More than 400 agencies are expected to participate and include, Lower Township, Middle Township, Wildwood and North Wildwood Police Departments in Cape May County.  Each municipality was granted $5,000.00 to assist with the costs of staffing patrols and conducting sobriety checkpoints from August 21, 2015 through September 7, 2015.

During last year’s campaign, 1,234 DWI arrests were made statewide.  Nationwide last year, 38 percent of crash fatalities on Labor Day weekend that year involved drunk drivers (with blood alcohol concentrations [BACs] of .08 or higher), amounting to 161 lives lost.

The Division of Highway Traffic Safety sees sobriety checkpoints as an effective law enforcement tool. Local police departments will stop vehicles at a predetermined fixed location to detect drivers impaired by alcohol and/or other drugs. Sobriety checkpoints increase the perception of the risk of arrest, if they are adequately publicized and highly visible to the public. Staffing requirements for checkpoints are dependent on many factors, but most importantly the location and traffic volume of the selected site. The traditional sobriety checkpoint is resource intensive for both uniform and support personnel, in order to set up and conduct the operation safely.  The funds granted to the law enforcement agencies by the Division of Highway Traffic Safety will permit police departments to dedicate the necessary staff to such operations as DWI checkpoints during the ‘Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over Campaign’.