Labor Day weekend checkpoints planned
By Lee Williams
Published in News on September 1, 2006 1:51 PM
Booze It and Lose It.
That's the message law enforcement officials want to spread to the community as this Labor Day weekend gets under way.
Officers from the Goldsboro Police Department kicked off their new Booze It and Lose it campaign this week in time for the holiday. The high-visibility enforcement effort will continue through Sept. 3, GPD Capt. M.D. West said.
Officers plan to keep a lookout for drunken drivers and other violators. The goal of the GPD and other Wayne County law enforcement officers is not to inconvenience drivers, but to save lives, officials say.
"In 2005, 1,416 North Carolina motorists were involved in fatal traffic crashes with 379 of those crashes being alcohol-related," West said. "The leading cause of collisions in North Carolina is speed. Every 17 minutes, someone is killed or injured on North Carolina highways in a speed-related accident."
There will be several road checks conducted at several locations such as Berkeley and Ash, Ash Street and Elm Street over the holiday weekend, so keep your license and insurance information on hand. And please don't try to turn around if you see a road checkpoint, officials say.
"In between calls for service, officers will be concentrating their efforts on looking for impaired drivers, speeding, seat belt violations, child passenger safety violations and other traffic-related offenses," West said.
During the Booze It and Lose It: Operation Firecracker campaign held June 29 to July 9, local law enforcement officials conducted 103 checkpoints and random patrols, which netted 27 DWI arrests, 134 occupant restraint violations and 112 other criminal violations, West said.