Hey Drinkers, Watch Your Speed
Don't be like this guy on Fourth of July weekend. Celebrate your independence from spending a night in the pokey by catching a ride with a sober pal or calling a cab. According to this run-on sentence from a Don Aaron press release, “Extra duty Metro police officers being paid through a Governor’s Highway Safety Office grant intend to make their presence known throughout Davidson County this Fourth of July weekend as they specifically look for impaired and/or aggressive motorists.”
Between Friday and Sunday, a dozen extra cops will be on the streets, especially between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. The buzz-kills at THP and even the Wildlife Resources Agency will also be in on the fun, so don’t try boozing and cruising either. Your tax dollars at work, folks.
Drivers should be particularly aware of the area around the Harris Teeter store on 21st Avenue and also on West End by Electronics Express. That’s not in the press release—it’s just common knowledge.
Have a safe weekend, y’all.
Comments
I get kind of tired of friends of mine who never send things to group lists deciding to send these extremely alarmed notices about sobriety checkpoints around major holidays. Kind of like these Obama emails in the irrational knee-jerk response to hit send.
But to see The Scene joining in on the fun is just embarrassing. PJ, if you knock a few back, instead of convincing yourself that you're a good drunk driver and sticking to the back roads, maybe just don't get behind the wheel at all. And encourage your scenester friends to do the same. Not to avoid a ticket or some short jailtime; to avoid pedestrians and other drivers.
Maybe if we had year-round enforcement with stiff, unavoidable penalties, more citizens would take the issue of drunk driving more seriously.
But hey, that's okay. Some of my best friends have been killed by drunk drivers! (Technically the brother of a good family friend, but it isn't any funnier.)
Posted 07/03/2008 at 01:14:09 PMI don’t advocate drunk driving, but I do think that DUI enforcement in Nashville is plenty tough. In the first half of 2008, Metro’s DUI unit has achieved a 30% increase in arrests over the same period in 2007. My problem is that many of these arrests are for vehicle owner DUI’s—over 141 in 2007—or for people who are slightly over the limit. Of course I’ve had close friends with lives tragically, irrevocably altered by drunk driving. In these cases the drivers were so impaired they should barely have been walking, much less behind the wheel of a car. But locking down Nashville streets and arresting people who have had two glasses of wine with dinner, is about creating revenue for the police department. I would argue that by pulling cops off of investigations and neighborhood patrols to man Soviet style checkpoints, this policy in fact makes us less safe.
Posted 07/03/2008 at 02:36:57 PM