Drunken drivers: Consider this a first and only warning

Law enforcement officers aren't afraid to let potential drunken drivers and speeders know they are being watched in Ramsey County.

The county sheriff, the State Patrol and police departments in St. Paul and seven other cities are beginning a second full year of joining forces two nights a month, to hone in on drunken drivers in a selected section of one host city. This time of year, the focus is on getting drunken drivers off the road over the holidays. In addition to St. Paul, the participating cities are Maplewood, Mounds View, New Brighton, North St. Paul, Roseville, St. Anthony and White Bear Lake.

Imagine driving home and noticing two or three hometown police cars, then maybe a State Patrol cruiser, and then a scattering of police cars from neighboring cities.

"When they see those cars like that outside their jurisdiction, it raises eyebrows," said Deputy Tim Entner, a program coordinator in the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department.

In addition, officials place large signs at the beginning and end of the selected route.

Entner said he hopes that the high-visibility Traffic Safety Initiative DWI Saturations, also called "Waves," will help to break through the constant hum against drunken driving and get people to truly stop and think about their choices.

During the most recent Wave, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a team of 26 officials stopped 354 vehicles along Interstate 694 between Silver Lake Road and Century Avenue, between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. Sunday. Their work that night took 14 drunken drivers off the road and resulted in 147 citations for speeding, driving without a license and other equipment and moving violations.

In a report to participating police chiefs, Entner noted that during the course of 24 events, the collaboration had netted 307 drunken-driving arrests from November 2008 through October 2009, and 1,997 charges filed, from 5,784 traffic stops.

Participating officers, deputies and troopers go through about 28 hours of training. They are expected to make the best of the opportunity to focus during their eight-hour shifts, each of which takes about $10,000 in overtime pay from grant funds.

The next Wave events will be in St. Paul on Dec. 26, the Saturday after Christmas, and New Year's Eve in St. Anthony. Entner doesn't care who knows it.

"We try to broadcast it as much as we can," he said. "What would we rather see, someone walking out of the bar and being picked up for it, or calling a cab and sparing themselves the problems and any injury that comes out of it?"

In fact, he said, the date and location of the very first Wave got out somehow, and was sent by e-mail from one friend to another.