"If they can save even one life by taking a drunk driver off the street, who can put a price tag on that?"
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Thanks reader. I liked that statement so much, I had to copy and paste it again. Good job.

This should be the perfect opportunity for those new Captains to get out there and earn their $13,000.00 raise.

But my guess is they'll be in front of the boob tube themselves having a cocktail or two.

biggirl-Seriously, what do you have against law enforcement? Did you have some bad past experiences? Anytime a story comes up with them DOING THEIR JOB, you have something to say about it. I don't get it. Just wondering.

People do not need a reason or excuse to drink alcohol and drive. I would think that an event like the Super Bowl would increase this just for the mere fact there are a lot of Super Bowl Parties out there and someone who may not drink on any other Sunday just might solely because they attend a Super Bowl party. If this would happen it would be considered an increase. Of course if the Packers were in the bowl then I believe the numbers of drunk drivers would increase enormously. But if this season was a sign of things to come, we have nothing to worry about for a while. And BigGirl: before you complain about the spending money on something that you seem to think is foolish, think of how much money you would fork out to save yourself or a loved one from being taken out by a drunk driver.

The story says that there was an increase in drunk driving arrests. While some of this may be due to increased enforcement (without an increase in drunk driving, I'm sure that having more officers paying more attention to potential drunk drivers would result in some increase in drunk driving arrests), I doubt that drunk driving rates/numbers don't increase on days like Superbowl Sunday.
I'm not sure, even if it was attributable solely to increased enforcement, why it would matter. Drunk driving is illegal (and wrong) whether or not law enforcement is focusing on catching people doing it.
As reader points out, the main reason we should encourage law enforcement to enforce drunk driving laws is to attempt to save lives. If it costs more, oh well. If the fines associated with an OWI cover the added expense of enforcing it, that's great too.

biggirl - it's easy to correlate a major sporting event with drinking. If, for some reason you don't think more people drink and drive during an event like the Super Bowl, you need to come back to reality.

If they can save even one life by taking a drunk driver off the street, who can put a price tag on that?

I imagine you're one of those folks that would say they arn't doing enough to combat drunk driving if you were hit by one.

And, I suppose that this alleged increase in drunk-driving has nothing to do with an increase in enforcement, including an increase due to those so-helpful federal grants? By the way, where does the money come from for this increase in patrols?