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May 17, 2001 Drinking?
Driving? RoadWatch will be there
Where will you be this May long weekend? Camping at the beach, opening up the cottage, barbecuing hamburgers in a friend's back yard? Wherever you are, if your plans involve drinking, you should know that the May long weekend marks more than the unofficial start of summer. It also marks the official launch of Manitoba Public Insurance's RoadWatch program, which provides funding for police to conduct additional impaired driving roadside checks throughout the summer. RoadWatch, now in its fourth year, combines increased law enforcement with a public awareness campaign aimed at reducing both the human and economic costs of impaired driving crashes. "Roadside spot checks are a proven way of reducing the number of drinking drivers," said MPI Road Safety Manager Paul Allen. "Through RoadWatch, MPI is able to make a very meaningful commitment to stopping impaired driving by funding additional roadside checks. "We want people to know that any time, any place, all summer long, RoadWatch is going to be there - protecting Manitobans from impaired drivers, and taking you off the road if you're one of them." Police in Winnipeg and Brandon as well as RCMP across the province will begin RoadWatch operations this weekend, the first holiday weekend of the summer, anywhere and everywhere in Manitoba. Dakota-Ojibway police are also participating. Extra road checks will be set up throughout the province to catch drivers with blood alcohol concentration levels of .05 or higher. Provincial legislation allows police to issue a 24-hour roadside suspension for anybody "blowing" .05 or over. Last year, RoadWatch saw police put in an additional 4,600 hours of enforcement time, over and above regular ongoing enforcement, during which they checked 41,480 vehicles and removed over 450 drinking drivers from Manitoba roadways. Contact:
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