• 20
  • October
    2011

Spurred on by the national Highway Traffic Safety Administration's slogan "Over the limit, under arrest," police officers across New York participated in a nation-wide two week campaign focusing on raising awareness of drunk driving and reducing the number of drunk drivers on the roads. New York police arrested 67 drivers on suspicion of driving while intoxicated (DWI) during the two-week period.

Police used a variety of methods to monitor the roads for drunk drivers. Police set up sobriety checkpoints at several locations around the state, which resulted in many arrests. At one checkpoint in Saratoga, police arrested 8 drivers in one evening on suspicion of DWI.

Another technique the police employed was saturation patrols, where groups of police officers trained to look for signs of impaired driving drive the roads seeking intoxicated drivers. Police also increased basic day-to-day enforcement.

Police reported that the average Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of the 67 people they arrested was 0.14 percent. The highest recorded BAC was 0.35 percent. Authorities charged 12 of the 67 people arrested with aggravated DWI for registering a BAC of 0.18 or higher and four of the 67 people arrested with felony DWI.

Drivers facing driving under the influence charges may have options available to fight these charges. Did police have probable cause to stop the suspected drunk driver? Did they properly administer any field sobriety tests? Did police follow procedure when conducting blood or breath tests?

New York has some of the toughest drunk driving laws in the nation, and authorities take driving while intoxicated charges very seriously. The state prosecutes such cases to the fullest extent they can and the penalties can be severe. Additional penalties are possible if there are children present in the vehicle, or if the drunk driver causes an accident.