This Labor Day weekend, ALL Newport County Police Departments, including Middletown, Newport, Portsmouth, Jamestown, Tiverton and Little Compton, in cooperation with the Rhode Island Office on Highway Safety and the Rhode Island Police Chiefs’ Association, will be conducting enhanced DUI patrols.
This campaign will begin on Friday, Sept. 3 and continue through Labor Day on Monday, Sept. 6. According to the National Highway Safety Transportation Administration (NHSTA) statistics, during the 2019 Labor Day Weekend, there were 451 traffic related fatalities across the United States. Of those fatalities, 45% involved a driver who had been driving under the influence. The goal of this campaign is to educate the public on the dangers of driving under the influence and to reduce the number of motor vehicle crashes attributed to impaired drivers.
All Newport County Police Departments will work in collaboration, with some departments teaming up officers throughout the holiday weekend and performing saturation patrols in an effort to detect impaired drivers. In addition, this DUI initiative will utilize the Providence Police Department’s Breath Alcohol Testing (B.A.T.) Mobile Unit. The B.A.T. Mobile allows officers to have centralized location to process all DUI arrests, which includes the administering of breathalyzer tests. Departments will also have trained Drug Recognition Experts (DRE’s) on hand to further evaluate drivers who may be operating while under the influence of a controlled substance other than alcohol.
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