According to a recent news article from the Boston Herald, a man was arrested for setting up a fake DUI sobriety checkpoint in Pennsylvania. Authorities say defendant, a 19-year-old man from Summerset, was allegedly driving drunk when he parked his car diagonally across a state highway. After parking his car in such a manner, he went to his trunk and took out road flares, which he then ignited and deployed on the road as part of his DUI checkpoint. This was around 4 a.m.

DUI checkpointOne motorist who was stopped alleged that defendant said he was a Pennsylvania State Trooper with the agency’s “drug and alcohol division.” Motorist says defendant then demanded to see her driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance. It is not known how many other vehicles he allegedly stopped or what he intended to do after stopping them. Continue reading

Every day, thousands of people drive drunk in the United States. If any of these people are at all worried about the consequences, they are generally worried about getting arrested. The sad reality is there are often far more serious consequences than being arrested, and those consequences are faced by innocents victims who are seriously injured or killed in drunk driving car accidents.

memorial-day-1189711-mAccording to a recent article from WCVB Boston, a community is mourning the loss of a teacher at a Quincy school who was killed in a drunk driving car accident. The 23-year-old teacher was lying unconscious alongside the road with her boyfriend next to her, according to authorities. Later that same day, police arrested a 21-year-old woman for drunk driving, leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident with personal injury and other related charges. Continue reading

Drunk driving is one of the few crimes where people with no criminal record get arrested, fail to learn their lesson, and then do the same thing again. Many people do not even think of drunk driving as a crime because they engage in this dangerous behavior so frequently.

However, the truth is drunk driving is illegal and for a good reason. Thousands of innocent victims are seriously injured or killed each year because of others’ negligent decision to drive drunk.

breathalyzerThere are many public service campaigns, sobriety checks points, and increased police patrols, but much of this only serves as a minor deterrent. It cannot physically prevent people from driving a vehicle under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The ignition interlock device (IID) is designed to do exactly that. Continue reading

While most drunk driving car accidents involved defendants operating a personal motor vehicle, some accidents involve an at-fault driver behind wheel of a large commercial vehicle, such a semi-tractor trailer or even a fully loaded dump truck carrying 80,000 pounds of gravel.

truck-1560934-300x167Large commercial motor vehicles take an extremely long time to stop, even under ideal conditions. For example, a loaded dump truck traveling at 55 mph would take more than a football field in length to come to a complete stop. When a driver is operating a large commercial vehicle and is tailgating a car in front of them, this is a recipe for disaster if the front car slams on its brakes. Continue reading

According to recent news article from KARE 11, a mother was just arrested for allegedly driving drunk while her 8-year-old daughter hung onto the car trying to get her mother to stop.

file0002141900449Authorities say witnesses saw this 46-year-old mother driving away from her home between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. with her young daughter hanging on to the outside of the vehicle. One of the witnesses to the alleged incident is a 16-year-old boy who was outside at the time of incident playing with younger children from the neighborhood. He described what happened, as it appeared defendant’s daughter was frantically tried to get her mother not to drive drunk, but the mother drove away anyway causing her daughter to fall off the car and be left by herself in the middle of the street. Continue reading

Ridding a go-kart can be a lot of fun. Many people go local amusement center to use the batting cages, play a round of miniature golf, and ride go-karts. On the other hand, some parents who want their kids to the be like Kyle Busch someday will spend thousands of dollars so their kids can ride go-karts that do over 50 mph, while participating in competitive youth racing. Regardless of one’s reason for riding a go-kart, we typically associate the activity with having fun, and not with drunk driving car accidents.

go-kart-1426225However, according to a recent news feature from ABC, a go-kart accident in Olmstead Township, Ohio ended with serious personal injury and a suspect being arrested for alleged drunk driving on the track that evening. According to authorities, the suspect crashed his go-kart into another woman’s go-cart, causing her to crash. Following the accident, first responders arrived to provide immediate assistance to the alleged drunk driving accident victim before transporting her to a local hospital for further evaluation and treatment.   Police said they only knew the drunk driving accident victim had an injury to her spine or back, but they do not know the extent of her injuries at this time. Continue reading

A vehicle ignition interlock is a device that some states require to be installed on the cars of repeat drunk driving offenders. The device consists of a breath test tube in which the driver must blow before starting the vehicle.

breathalyzerOriginally, alcohol interlock devices were only used prior to starting the car. However, it became apparent that many intoxicated drivers were having a sober person blow into the tube, so they could start the car before driving away. This is what prosecutors call a “blow and go.” Now, the device can alert the driver at any time, and he or she is required to blow into the tube again to keep the car running. There were many who were concerned this could result in a serious danger to the driver if his or her vehicle shut down in a unsafe location and would not restart, but the companies manufacturing the devices say they have designed their respective systems say they were made in a way that will not occur. Continue reading

According to a recent news article from The Boston Globe, Massachusetts Bay Area Transportation Authority (MBTA) Transit Police alleged that a 55-year-old suspect hit a Transit Police cruiser in South Boston.

police-on-the-scene-1172422-mThe accident occurred around 7 p.m. on a Thursday evening, when suspect was allegedly driving his Ford pickup truck. Police say the officer who was operating the cruiser that suspect allegedly sideswiped, immediately began chasing the suspect, and was able to pull him over shortly after the motor vehicle accident. The officer pulled suspect over on the corner of A Street and West Broadway in South Boston. Continue reading

All over America, people are gearing up to celebrate the July 4th holiday with family, fireworks, cookouts and, quite often, booze. austintexasriverboar

Generally, there is nothing wrong with adults imbibing in a few brews at a gathering. But there is nothing patriotic about getting behind the wheel after doing so.

Consistently, the Fourth of July has been labeled the most dangerous holiday of the year in terms of crashes.This has to do with the fact that most people are off work, usually for several days at a time, it’s summer time and people are more apt to not only drink but feel obligated to travel to more than one destination.

When it comes to preventing drunk driving through strict penalties, Massachusetts is somewhere right on the middle border. thirsty

The website Wallet Hub analyzed DUI laws in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia using a key of 15 different metrics. Using this, they then ranked each state based on how strict or lenient it was on DUI offenders.

Massachusetts ranked 23rd out of 51 for overall. In terms of criminal penalties, however, we ranked as the 9th-strictest state. However, for DUI prevention, we ranked way at the bottom at 44th.

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