Via Stamford Advocate
As part of an effort to curb drunk driving in town, police have installed new off-ramp signs on highways with the message to drivers to stay off the road when they are under the influence.
The signs, the brainchild of Officer Robert Brown, a state-police-certified DWI enforcement instructor, features a graphic of a martini glass inside a red circle intersected by a red line.
'We wanted it to emphasize that we take drunk driving enforcement very seriously,' said Brown, a 20-year veteran of the Greenwich Police Department. 'We want them to know that we're out there enforcing the law.'
Brown said his time spent at the Institute of Police Technology and Management in Jacksonville, Fla., spurred him to come up with an initiative that might prevent drunk driving in addition to punishing it.
The signs were made by the town's highway division, and paid for using police department and highway division funds, Brown said.
'We have the problem in our community and we already have strong enforcement,' Brown said. 'We need to hit people with education. Just punishing people is not good enough.'
In 2006, Greenwich had 203 arrests for driving under the influence compared with 231 in 2005, according to Sgt. Timothy Berry, who oversees the police department's traffic Division.
Berry praised Brown's initiative, and said the signs might reinforce the fear of arrest for drunk drivers.
'I think they're great,' Berry said of the signs. 'The message isn't really directed at the law-abiding people but at the drunk drivers, so they may think about it more.'
Berry said he hopes to secure funding for greater enforcement through the state Department of Transportation's Expanded Enforcement program, which gives police overtime grants for enforcement crackdowns throughout the year rather than just on holidays, when drunk driving is considered more prevalent.
Berry said he'd also try to arrange for Greenwich to get more grant money for its traditional holiday DWI checkpoints and patrols, funding that fell off in 2006. Berry said he believes the number of drunk drivers caught reflects only a percentage of an unquantified larger number of drunk drivers.
'I don't think from our numbers you can really say if there was more or less drunk driving,' Berry said. 'If we had a full-time crew working on it we'd probably have 500 arrests a year.'
The signs are being installed on all highway off-ramps along I-95 and the Merritt Parkway, and on the Post Road at the state line with Port Chester and the town line with Stamford, Brown said.
Full Story: Stamford Advocate
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