ST. PAUL, Minn. - Just in time for the state’s fishing opener and nice weather, law enforcement agencies from the Twin Cities metro area are saturating metro-area roadways with the largest coordinated drunken driving event ever.
As a bonus, the Department of Public Safety will live-report the arrest activity. Follow the updates at @MnDPS_OTS, #May10DWI.
The campaign is coordinated by the DPS Office of Traffic Safety. City and county agencies and the Minnesota State Patrol are participating. Extra drunken driving patrols are also hitting the roads in many other counties this weekend.
The increased patrols are rolling out to alert motorists of the dangers and consequences of drunk driving as the state heads into the warm-weather driving season, when impaired driving activity historically increases. In the past five years, there were 288 drunk driving deaths during May–August, representing 44 percent of the state’s total drunk driving deaths (651) in these five years.
Each year in Minnesota, drunk driving accounts for more than 100 deaths and nearly 300 serious, life-altering injuries. Nearly 30,000 people are arrested for DWI annually and one in seven Minnesota drivers has a DWI on record.
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“We are strongly demonstrating what we are doing to stop drunk drivers through this display of enforcement,” says DPS Commissioner Mona Dohman. “We are asking you to do your part, too, by planning ahead and avoiding the dangers and consequences of driving impaired.”
The May 10 event leads into future increased DWI patrols this summer that will be focused on the state’s 13 counties with the highest combined totals of drunk driving deaths and serious injuries: Anoka, Becker, Dakota, Hennepin, Meeker, Olmsted, Otter Tail, Ramsey, St. Louis, Sherburne, Stearns, Washington, Wright.
A statewide DWI crackdown will be on the roads in mid-August.
