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December 11, 2006

Providence police to target drunken drivers

PROVIDENCE – The Providence Police Department will put new emphasis on arresting drunken drivers, after focusing elsewhere in recent years.

Now that the department has brought down violent crime, “we’ll be able to devote more and more of our resources to other concerns,” particularly drunken driving, Chief Dean Esserman said today.

Thirty-nine Providence officers are being trained this week in conducting field sobriety tests and operating breath testing equipment, Esserman said.

“We are devoting resources, training, personnel and time” to the problem, he said.

Esserman spoke at the announcement of a statewide program, called “Operation Blue Riptide,” which uses federal money to hire police officers on overtime to try to catch drunken drivers, particularly during the holidays.

The state has about one fatal traffic accident a week, Esserman said, and about half of those are alcohol-related. For years, officials lamented the fact that the state was worst in the nation in its proportion of fatal accidents that were alcohol-related.

“We are now the third worst,” said Janice Loiselle, administrator of the state Office of Highway Safety. “This is not good news, but we are headed in the right direction.”

-- Journal staff writer Bruce Landis

Posted by Kate Bramson  at 4:14 PM | Permalink

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