The Drive: How effective are DWI crackdowns?

Law enforcement from nearly 400 state agencies launched their latest crackdown on drunken drivers over Thanksgiving weekend. They'll be at it every Friday and Saturday through the end of the year as part of an enforcement effort put on by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety's Office of Traffic Safety.

Invariably, blog posts and news reports about these types of campaigns — whether they be for drunken driving, seat-belt usage, distracted driving or speeding — elicit a few snarky comments. ­Earlier this year, I wrote about a Labor Day drunken driving blitz, which one reader characterized as a "revenue-generating scheme disguised as public safety." But the Drive's mailbox also gets questions from readers who wonder how effective these campaigns are and how much they cost.

The data suggest they are effective. Seat-belt usage has climbed from around 30 percent decades ago to nearly 95 percent last year. Drunken-driving arrests and fatalities have dropped, too. As recently as 2006, more than 41,951 motorists were arrested in Minnesota for driving while impaired. By last year that number had declined to 25,719. Alcohol-related deaths fell from 166 nine years ago to 81 last year.

"Enforcement and education campaigns are effective deterrents," said Donna Berger of the Office of Traffic Safety. "A growing number of motorists are making that smart decision to not combine drinking and driving, but it still happens way too often. There is no pushing the rewind button after a drunken driver gets behind the wheel and forever changes the lives of others."

Lynn Goughler knows that all too well. She lost both of her parents on Thanksgiving 1992 when they were struck while crossing a street. The driver who hit them had been drinking for four hours. He was charged only a $100 fine for driving without insurance since his blood alcohol content was below .10 percent, which was the legal limit at that time.

It's a somber memory that haunts her every Thanksgiving, said Goughler, who has worked with MADD over the past 18 years to toughen laws, including the one that reduced the legal driving limit to .08 percent. It's a memory she hopes other families won't experience. Yet one person dies in an alcohol-related crash every 51 minutes.

"This is a tragedy we need to eliminate," she said at a news conference last week. "I hope we will take this more seriously than we have in the past. I hope down the road that I will live long enough to see drunken driving gone forever."

"The dream of the State Patrol is to hit the road and not find one person behind the wheel drunk," said the patrol's Eric Roeske. "Until the day all drivers make the decision to find a sober ride home, the State Patrol will do everything in its power to take drunks off the road."

The enforcement over five weekends will cost $600,000. A grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration pays overtime for officers. They will be on DWI lookout outside their regular hours so that public safety isn't compromised.