Dui Prevention Tactics

Since, the attacks on September 11th, 2001 drunk drivers have killed more people than on that sad day. The main question to all concerned citizens is when will people finally realize the harm of DUI and stop tolerating drinking and driving? Until citizens finally wake up and realize what they are doing, law enforcement must try to contain the problem and law abiding citizens safe. There are two basic methods of dealing with the DUI problem; sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols.

The main focus of the article is to describe the different ways to prevent drunk driving, which are sobriety checkpoints, saturation patrols, and public awareness through the different types of media (papers, television, wed etc.) Keys facts stated in the article are mainly on the amounts of death by alcohol related crashes, which have increased, stats based a states and comparisons between sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols and amounts of arrests. A study done in 2000 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that 16,653 people died in alcohol-related crashes, which was an increase of 800 from 1999.

Sobriety checkpoints and saturation points are two different methods of preventing drunk driving. Sobriety checkpoints are simply a roadblock set up by a police agency and check cars (usually every other) to see the driver is under the influence. A downfall to these checkpoints is they must display warning signs and lights to approaching vehicles, which may lead to some drivers under the influence to seek a different route home to bypass the checkpoint. Media plays a big role in showing that police will set these checkpoints up and will enforce the law harshly. 70 to 80 percent of Americans favor this way of preventing drunk driving.

Saturation patrols involve a big effort of law enforcement agencies in the area to cover a large area; shown to have a history of alcohol related crashes and incidents. Intense media coverage is another big part in the success of these patrols because it shows that law enforcement agencies are serious and will not tolerate drunk driving.

A few states such as; Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee have shown efforts with sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols, usually with