Metropolitan Police to Conduct Happy Hour Sobriety Checkpoint This Friday

The Metropolitan Police Department will conduct a sobriety checkpoint in the 3600 block of Canal Road in Washington on Friday, September 26, 2003 from 7:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. The sobriety checkpoint, which is scheduled to coincide with Friday afternoon "happy hour," is part of Checkpoint Strikeforce, which couples a public awareness radio campaign with zero tolerance law enforcement to reduce the number of impaired drivers in the Washington area.

The National Center for Statistics & Analysis reports that in 2002, a total of 17,419 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes nationwide, including 25 people in the District, 265 in Maryland and 371 in Virginia. In a survey of licensed drivers conducted last month by Andres McKenna Research, 57 percent of those surveyed felt that drunk drivers are a serious danger in the D.C. area.

In support of Checkpoint Strikeforce, the Maryland Highway Safety Office and the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles provided grants to the Washington Regional Alcohol Program, a public-private coalition formed to fight drunk driving, drugged driving and underage drinking in the Washington metropolitan area. WRAP has developed a $170,000 public awareness campaign that will air on area radio stations between now and New Year's Eve.