Most any New Jersey motorist should be able to tell you that drunken driving enforcement around the Garden State appears to have gotten more intense over the years. And it should come as no surprise, especially to those individuals who have been convicted of DWI, that the state police, local law enforcement departments and the courts have virtually no tolerance for drivers who choose to operate their vehicles while under the influence of alcohol, prescription drugs, marijuana and other controlled dangerous substances (CDS).
Increasingly, New Jersey police departments are operating drunk driving patrols and sobriety checkpoints, also known as DWI checkpoints. As a New Jersey drunk driving defense lawyer, this trend is not news to my office. We represent motorists from all across New Jersey — in counties such as Bergen, Monmouth and Ocean — who have been accused of driving while intoxicated either by beer, wine, hard liquor or drugs, prescription or illicit.
An article from Sea Isle, NJ, talked about the relative success of that municipality’s most recent sobriety checkpoint, which apparently caught few DWI offenders, but a number of other traffic violators. In all, just three drivers were either arrested or charged with drunk driving offenses. According to the news piece, on August 28, local police set up a drunken driving checkpoint on the 200 block of JFK Boulevard.
Sobriety inspections were conducted by 18 patrolmen from the Sea Isle City Police Department (SICPD), as well as four officers from the Cape May County Sheriff’s Department. As part of their operation, the officers stopped every third vehicle traveling along the westbound lanes of the JFK. It was a late-night operation, running from 11pm to just before 4am.
According to a SICPD spokesperson, officers on duty arrested two drivers for operating a vehicle while under the influence. In addition, one arrest warrant was made and 72 summonses were also issued for traffic violations not related to drunk driving.
Sea Isle Police Call D.W.I. Checkpoint “Successful”, NBC40.net, September 2, 2010