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State Police Saturating Roads

07/03/09 11:37 pm | reporter: Brian Damewood producer: Andrew Levinson

search tags: dui • checkpoint • safety

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Lynchburg, VA - For many Virginians, the July 4th holiday is a big weekend for partying and traveling, and a lot of drivers are going to hit the roadways, but so are state police. Troopers across the Commonwealth are cracking down on unsafe driving, and DUI. They say driving fatalities are down this year, and they want to keep it that way.

State police say traffic deaths are down about 16% from this time last year. So, troopers across the Commonwealth are beefing up their roadway patrols this weekend. On a regular day they say about half of their officers are on roads. This weekend, state police say they'll have at least 75% of their officers on patrol, and they're going to be running DUI checkpoints across the state to catch impaired drivers. Troopers say with travelers saturating the roads, drunk drivers pose an even greater risk for an accident. On top of that, vacationers need to be concerned about other motorists, not making good time.

Sgt. David Edwards, Virginia State Police (web) - "If everybody is patient and they obey all the traffic laws, then things go a lot smoother. When people get out there and they start driving 20, 30 miles over the speed limit, things like that, it not only causes problems for them, but it can cause problems for the other people out here who are just trying to get from one place to another."

Last Fourth of July holiday state police wrote more than 17,000 traffic and criminal violations. More than 150 of those were for DUI

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