For many Americans, Labor Day weekend means an extra day off, backyard and beach barbecues, visiting friends and family, and the unofficial end of the summer season. It also means a sharp increase in drunk-driving-related fatalities.
Now through Labor Day, September 1, Pasadena Police Department will be aggressively targeting drunk and drugged drivers as part of a nationwide effort to end impaired driving and save lives.
At the Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign, officers will be looking for impaired drivers throughout the city with a DUI Saturation patrol on Saturday, August 30, 2014, in areas with high frequencies of DUI collisions and/or arrests between the hours of 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.
A DUI/Drivers License Checkpoint is also planned for Friday, August 29, at an undisclosed location within the city limits between the hours of 7:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.
Aside from the obvious risks of killing yourself or someone else, driving impaired can also lead to serious punitive consequences.
A DUI arrest can mean:
- Time in jail
- Loss of your license
- Steep financial expenses
- Average DUI can cost up to $10,000.
Every 51 minutes, someone is killed in a drunk-driving crash. Over the Labor Day weekend, those fatalities increase to one every 34 minutes. Nighttime is especially dangerous; almost half (46 percent) of the fatalities in nighttime crashes over the Labor Day weekend involved a driver with a BAC of .08 or higher, compared to 25 percent in daytime fatal crashes.
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