Starting Sat., Nov. 23 and running through Sunday, Dec. 1, New York State Police are cracking down on unsafe driving, according to a press release.
“A common threat on our roads that we continually fight is impaired and drunk driving,” wrote New York State Police Superintendent Steven G. James. “Traffic enforcement is imperative to everyone’s well-being and the goal of making this holiday a safe one. The New York State Police proudly joins our law enforcement partners in the ongoing effort to discourage, detect, and apprehend impaired and drunk drivers.”
The escalation of patrols was clearly visible Sunday in Kingston, with a much higher than usual number of police vehicles from multiple agencies spotted throughout the city.
Police will also employ sobriety checkpoints to catch inebriated drivers. Many New Yorkers know that having a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .08% is the threshold for being arrested for Driving While Intoxicated (DWI). Lesser known is the fact you can be arrested for a BAC as low as .05%, which still carries a $500-$1000 mandatory fine, a jail sentence of up to 15 days, and a license suspension of up to 90 days for first-time violators. In fact, police can charge you with impaired driving simply by observing enough evidence of impairment from any controlled substance.
Distracted drivers are also in the crosshairs of this crackdown, with unmarked vehicles being used to catch people using their smartphones while driving. New York was the first state in the nation to ban hand-held cell phone use while driving, circa Nov. 1, 2001. According to the Institute for Traffic Safety Management & Research at the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College, distracted driving was a contributing factor in one out of every ten fatal crashes and one in four personal injury crashes.
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