The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
The township Police Department recently received a $4,400 grant to aid in its participation in this year’s “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” anti-drunk driving campaign.
The department was one of 144 in the state to receive the grants for the program, which runs from Dec. 6 through Jan. 2, 2014.
The grants come from the state Attorney General’s Office Division of Highway Safety.
More than 400 local, county and state law enforcement agencies will ramp up their drunk driving patrols during the next month.
“Police will be targeting those drivers and once again this effort will send the message that if you chose to drink and drive, you will be arrested every time, no exception,” Gary Poedubicky, acting director of the Division of Highway Traffic Safety, said in a release about the crackdown.
In Somerset County, law enforcement agencies will be conducting saturation patrols and sobriety checkpoints looking for motorists who are driving while intoxicated, according to a press release about the campaign.
The releases offered tips to avoid drunk driving:
• Take mass transit, a taxicab, or ask a sober friend to drive you home.
• Spend the night where the activity is held.
• If you see an impaired driver on the road, contact law enforcement. Your actions may save someone’s life, and inaction could cost a life.
• Always buckle-up, every ride. It’s your best defense against an impaired driver.
• If you are intoxicated and traveling on foot, the safest way to get home is to take a cab or have a sober friend or family member drive or escort you to your doorstep.
• Be a responsible friend. If someone you know is drinking, do not let that person get behind the wheel.
