Police crack down on drunken driving

ALBUQUERQUE — New Mexico authorities will be out in force over the holiday weekend as part of an ongoing effort to crack down on drunken driving.

State police and other law enforcement agencies also will be conducting sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols around the state throughout the month of July.

People should celebrate the Fourth of July, but there’s no excuse for getting behind the wheel if they’re intoxicated, Department of Public Safety Secretary Scott Weaver said in an interview Friday.

The warnings are coming in the form of billboards, television and radio ads and messages flashing on digital road signs.

“You’ve got to be living under a rock to not know that this is wrong,” Weaver said of driving under the influence. “We’re in the 21st century. It’s on social media. It’s on the news. It is everywhere.”

Weaver said he believes more people are getting the message, but without a constant education campaign and partnerships between anti-DWI advocates and law enforcement, the problem will persist. He likened a vehicle with an intoxicated person behind the wheel to a 2,500pound bullet.

In the first five months of the year, 56 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes on New Mexico roads, according to figures compiled by The University of New Mexico and the state Transportation Department. That represents nearly two-fifths of the total traffic fatalities recorded from January through May.

Last year, 175 people died in alcohol-related crashes, up from a low of 120 in 2015.

About 10,000 people die every year nationally as the result of drunken driving and 290,000 are injured, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

The group said the number of deaths caused by drunken driving increased for the first time in 50 years in 2015 and is expected to rise again when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration releases the 2016 totals later this year.