“Booze It & Lose It” is a safety campaign run by the Governor’s Highway Safety Program (GHSP). It becomes active during high-alcohol holiday seasons. Halloween fits that description.
Starting Friday, October 28 through Monday, October 31, North Carolina will have checkpoints and stepped-up patrols in an effort to remove impaired drivers from the roads. How much of a force will be rallied? Well, in 2010, the 3-day Halloween Booze It & Lose It campaign, the 2388 checkpoints and patrols racked up more than 19,000 traffic and criminal violations. This included 774 DWIs, 405 drug violations, and 5547 speeding/reckless driving tickets.
The on-going goal of Booze It & Lose It is to make sure that drunk drivers (those who “booze it”) lose their driving privileges. In North Carolina, the first conviction for driving while impaired (DWI) requires mandatory revocation of your driver’s license for one year, and you will also pay a fine and spend up to 2 years in jail. If you get a second conviction within three years of the first, you lose your license for four years and you will also face jail time. With a third conviction (when at least one of the prior convictions was within the last 5 years), your drivers license is permanently revoked.
To read more about the facts of DWI in North Carolina and the Booze It & Lose It campaign, click here: Save a life…Drive sober.
This Halloween weekend, party responsibly…and please don’t drink and drive. If you get stopped for DWI, it won’t matter how good your costume is, there will be no treats waiting for you in jail.