Georgia Traffic Enforcement Network DUI "surge" to reduce risk or increase revenue?

Saturday, 22 December 2007

The Dawson Times reported on December 21, 2007 that the Governor's Office of Highway Safety is increasing DUI prosecutions by coordinated DUI patrols and roadblocks through out the holiday season.  State officials claims that the DUI Surge is for to save lives and not write tickets.  However, their own statistics undermine their claims.  Last year during the Christmas "traffic period," there were 22 fatalities on Georgia Highways and 6 were alcohol related.  First, "alcohol related" means alcohol on the breath of the driver and could mean alcohol was found in the vehicle and no one was drinking!  But even accepting this logical, roughly 25% of  fatalities were related to alcohol.  This means that 75% of fatalities were related to speeding and other forms of unsafe driving.   However, there is no mention of increased patrols for speeders and other dangerous drivers.  This begs the question: Why are we focusing so much money and resources on 25% of the problem.  The Answer seems to be that DUI arrests produce more revenue and political capital than cracking down on speeders.  A day on Atlanta Freeways and Georgia country roads can be like a lap at the Indy 500.  You are unsafe if you travel under 70.  Lets get back to basics and arrest speeders and reckless drivers instead of taking traffic enforcement officers off the road for 2 and 3 hours to process unimpaired drivers who have had two or three beers based on some randomly chosen blood limit which doesn't take into account the fact that alcohol effects different people differently.  The people of Georgia need help on the highways not hypocrisy in the headlines.  Read the article

 

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