Tuesday, November 24, 2009

State troopers on the prowl for drunk drivers

If you're planning on cruising the highways in the Lone Star State this holiday weekend, you might want to watch your speed, make sure you're buckled in and find a designated driver.

The Texas Department of Public Safety has announced state troopers will be on the lookout for speeders, drunk drivers and unrestrained passengers over the Thanksgiving holiday. Last year over the Wednesday through Sunday holiday weekend, state troopers arrested 252 motorists on suspicion of drunk driving. Let's do some math...

That's 252 motorists whose licenses would have been suspended for either failing or declining a breath test and who would have been charged a $125 reinstatement fee to the DPS. That comes out to $31,500 in potential reinstatement fees. Those same 252 motorists could have faced surcharges of $3,000 for a DWI conviction. That comes out to $756,000.

That means the DPS had the potential to score $787,500 in fees over the holiday weekend. And this figure doesn't even include the possible fines and court costs the counties could have picked up (if we figure an average of a $500 fine and $300 in court costs - that's potentially $201,600 for the counties involved).

Yep, driving while intoxicated is big business in Texas.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

and in ohio as revenues drop they have to pick up the load on the backs of our citizens. this really is big business, but it ruins peoples lives and must be stopped.