SARASOTA – The latest PSA for the Florida Highway Patrol shows a trooper about to inform someone their loved one was involved in a DUI crash something all too familiar for the national group Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.
“Drinking and driving and driving impaired under the influence of prescription or legal narcotics is a public health epidemic,” said Larry Coggins. “And it’s killing people each and every day throughout the state.
More than a dozen states, including Florida, will participate in Saturation Saturday. A partnership Mothers Against Drunk Drivers has with local law enforcement agencies to keep impaired drivers off the road.
“Law enforcement is the first line of defense in MADD’s campaign to eliminate drunk driving,” said Coggins.
Coggins, Mothers Against Drunk Driving West Central Florida Executive Director, says this annual event is reminder it’s never to okay to drink and drive.
Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Ken Watson say FHP won’t be the only ones out on the roadways tonight looking for impaired drivers. “This is a collaboration of all the local agencies, were we’re trying to get the word out that driving impaired will not be tolerated,” said Watson.
According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention everyday 29 people in the U.S. die in crashes that involved an alcohol impaired driver. However Trooper Watson says impaired driving does not simply mean drunk driving it’s much more than that.
“If you are on medication, if you are on alcohol, if you have taken even the prescription that your physician has given you,” said Trooper Watson “You must remember if it impairs you any way whatsoever you can still be arrested for impair driving.”
FHP alongside other local agencies in Sarasota and Manatee County will increase their patrol on the roadways to prevent anyone from receiving the news their loved one won’t make it home.