ALBANY – Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that State Police and local law enforcement will ramp up patrols to combat drunk, impaired and reckless driving this Memorial Day weekend. The STOP-DWI enforcement period starts on Friday, May 25 and runs through Monday, May 28.
Memorial Day is one of the busiest travel holidays of the year, and police will be out in force to remove impaired and reckless drivers from the road.
“Impaired driving is reckless, dangerous, and a crime, and state and local law enforcement will be out in full force to keep our roadways safe,” Governor Cuomo said. “This Memorial Day weekend, I urge New Yorkers to not get behind the wheel if you’ve been drinking and make responsible choices to avoid senseless tragedies.”
Drivers can expect to see sobriety checkpoints and increased patrols by State Police and local law enforcement agencies during this holiday weekend. Troopers will be using both marked State Police vehicles and Concealed Identity Traffic Enforcement vehicles as part of this crackdown in order to more easily identify motorists who are violating the law.
These vehicles blend in with every day traffic but are unmistakable as emergency vehicles once the emergency lighting is activated.
On Memorial Day weekend in 2017, Troopers arrested 237 people for drinking and driving, issued 12,169 tickets, and investigated 146 personal injury crashes which resulted in 190 people injured. In addition to the New York State Police, numerous counties and agencies throughout the state also participated in last year’s Memorial Day Crackdown.
According to the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research at the University at Albany, drunk driving killed 272 people and injured nearly 6,000 others in New York State during 2016. Another 267 people were killed in drug-related crashes.
