Raleigh's DWI crackdown boosts safety
In a season of revelry, Raleigh police delivered sobering news this week for those who drink and drive, a message especially relevant for New Year's Eve.
This year a special Raleigh police unit supported by a $525,000 federal grant has helped dramatically increase driving-while-impaired arrests and raised the odds that drunken drivers will get caught.
Raleigh's DWI arrests have increased more than 50 percent since the special unit began operating at the start of this year. Officers recorded 2,843 DWI arrests from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, up from to 1,781 in 2013. That's more than an additional 1,000 people who've had the painful experience of being handcuffed, fingerprinted, photographed and jailed. After that, they must endure paying fines and legal fees, losing their licenses for a period and having their mugshots circulate on the Internet for years to come.
The jump in DWI arrests may be reducing fatal alcohol-related accidents. This year, the Raleigh police department recorded 10 fatal, alcohol-related accidents. Last year, there were 27. Raleigh Police Lt. Tim Tomczak, who supervises the department's DWI enforcement unit, said, "Every time I lock somebody up, I hate it. But on the flip side, I know I may have saved somebody's life, maybe my own loved ones."
The increase in DWI arrests raises questions about whether Raleigh is targeting drunken driving even as it's promoting a growing number or bars and restaurants downtown. But Raleigh police spokesman Jim Sughrue says the DWI crackdown was not incompatible with the city's promotion of its downtown entertainment districts. "Nobody is saying, 'Come downtown, drink an impairing amount of alcohol and then drive,' " he said.
More motorists being arrested also focuses attention on how many are being caught at checkpoints rather than for erratic driving, speeding or other actions that would draw an officer's attention. Sughrue says Raleigh police did conduct eight checkpoints on Saturday mornings between 12:30 a.m. and 3 a.m., but the locations varied widely and accounted for only 135 DWI arrests.
Statistics on alcohol-related fatal accidents indicate that stepped up enforcement is needed. Arthur Goodwin, a researcher with the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, said alcohol-related fatalities dropped statewide in 2008 as a result of people driving less during the depths of the recession. From 2009 to 2013, the rate remained relatively flat statewide but rose sharply in Wake County from 15 in 2009 to 32 in 2013.
Goodwin said the drop in Raleigh's alcohol-related fatal accidents likely reflects the city's increased arrests. "We do know that high-visibility enforcement can work to create the perception that police are out there looking for impaired drivers," he said.
Heavy penalties persuade most people not to drink excessively and drive, but ultimately it would be better to emphasize prevention rather than punishment.
Alcohol ignition-interlock systems have proven very effective in keeping those convicted of DWI from driving again while impaired. The next step would be a syem that keeps anyone from driving who has excessive alcohol in his bloodstream. That's the objective of a joint government-industry research project that aims for a system that can determine a driver's blood alcohol level in a third of a second, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The system would use sensors to read a driver's blood alcohol concentration level through the driver's breath or his touch.
The IIHS estimates that more than 7,000 deaths could be prevented annually if all drivers with BAC levels above the 0.08 legal limit were kept off the road. Getting to that point is a good resolution for 2015. It would be better to keep more impaired drivers from behind the wheel than to keep putting them behind bars.
This story was originally published December 30, 2014 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Raleigh's DWI crackdown boosts safety."