Police Beat by Tom Geyer

The results from the Iowa State Patrol’s “Safe Saturday” project are in, and it seems that putting more cops on the streets at certain hours on certain days pays off.
For the month of June alone, Capt. Curt Henderson said that speeding citations increased 26.7 percent over June 2008, while OWI arrests increased 24.4 percent from last year. Seatbelt citations also jumped 23.2 percent while total citations issued increased 27.4 percent.
Now, for the “Safe Saturday” project, which increased manpower in certain areas of the state during Saturdays in June.
Because of that project, OWI arrests on Saturday night in June rocketed 120 percent over June 2008. Speeding citations issued on Saturdays increased 81.25 percent over 2008. Seatbelt citations on Saturdays increased 51.6 percent over 2008.
Iowa State Patrol Col. Patrick Hoye said that statistics have shown that Saturday is one of the deadliest nights of the week on the road.
He said that the Safe Saturday project might be the reason the total fatality count for June is 30, which is the lowest in 27 years.

And then on the waterways, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources ran “Operation Dry Water” over the weekends of June 26-28 and July 3-5.
During the June 26-28 weekend, eight people were issued citations for Operating Under the Influence, while 30 people were issued citations for boating while drunk during the July 4 weekend.
For the two weekends, more than 603 citations were issued for everything from OUI to not having enough life jackets on the vessels. Another 581 written warnings also were issued.
But the enforcement paid off, said Illinois Boating Law Administrator Sgt. Joe Morelock. “This is the first 4th of July holiday since 2005 that we have not had a boating-related fatality during the holiday weekend.”

As a reminder, every area police agency says they are always on the lookout for drunk or impaired drivers. And a Moline cop I was talking to the other day said to warn people that buzzed driving is drunk driving. Yep, in Illinois you can be taken to jail if you’re below .08. All it takes is an inability to control your car. You don’t lose your license, but everything else is the same, which means a hefty fine and court costs and an insurance company bill that all together will run into the thousands of dollars.