As noted in a previous post, a national DUI crackdown is underway under the direction of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The crackdown is timed to overlap with Labor Day and the few weeks leading up to the long holiday and the end of summer. The crackdown began on August 19 and will run all the way through Labor Day weekend, or September 5.
The crackdown will be occurring throughout Georgia and the entire country. Local law enforcement will partner with national and state forces to try to make more DUI arrests in an effort to make the highways safer. The slogan of the 2011 Labor Day Crackdown campaign is “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over.”
The Governors Highway Safety Association’s website discusses certain strategies that Georgia law enforcement will be enacting in order to crack down on drunken driving and make DUI arrests. The regional effort throughout Georgia is the Operation Zero Tolerance/Drive Sober Get Pulled Over campaign headed by the Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety.
This effort will involve DUI saturation patrols with greater visibility and increased presence of police officers on the roadways specifically looking for people who are driving under the influence of alcohol. These high-visibility efforts will also include sobriety checkpoints. More than 600 law enforcement officers in Georgia, including local police, sheriff’s departments and state patrols posts, will be involved in these efforts.
There will be public service announcements used as educational tools to coincide with the increased police patrols. PSAs will air during UGA football games, and they will also air online and on radio and TV. The Hands Across the Border effort involves cooperation between Georgia and bordering states to try to arrest people for DUI on both sides of the border.
Source: Governors Highway Safety Association, “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over: 2011 Labor Day Crackdown,” Aug. 19 – Sept. 5