Published: May 07, 2008 12:15 am      

DUI arrests up in Cambria

Though state police drunken driving arrests are rising in Cambria County and dropping in Somerset County since 2004, both areas have seen a decrease in DUI-related crashes since then.

Statewide, state police said Tuesday, they arrested 15,583 drivers for DUI violations in 2007 – a single-year record.

At the Somerset barracks, the number of DUI arrests has shrunk by 37 percent since 2004. That year, seven more DUI crashes were reported than in 2007.

Cpl. Bill Link said the decrease in arrests can be seen as encouraging. “When you go out and do enforcement, you are trying to change a trend or habit of the motoring public. What we may be seeing is that we have changed the pattern,” he said.

“You are going to have a curve.”

Troopers from the Ebensburg barracks made 56 percent more DUI arrests in 2007 than in 2004, and the number of DUI crashes fell from 39 in 2004 to 30 last year.

In an interview earlier this year, a state police representative in Ebensburg said troopers have made cracking down on drunken driving a priority.

“We’ve really stepped it up over the past few years, and our driving under the influence arrests have dramatically increased,” Sgt. William Bonin said of the jump from 131 arrests in 2004 to 206 in 2005.

Since then, those figures have remained steady.

Though the overall number of arrests in Somerset County has been decreasing, a Somerset-based trooper was among the state’s top DUI enforcers, according to a press release from the Pennsylvania Department of state police.

Trooper Jeffrey C. Flowers, who was unavailable for comment, made the list of 22 troopers with his 61 DUI arrests in 2007.

Troopers are trained to watch for drunken drivers as they patrol, but they also conduct DUI checkpoints when the barracks can find funding – typically a couple times each year.

“Our goal is to stop drinking and driving, not just to go out and arrest people,” Link said.

“The purpose is not to make our numbers look good. The purpose is to lower DUI crashes.”

Link said more DUI checkpoints are slated in the coming months, as well as roving patrols assigned solely to drunken driving enforcement.

As prom season and the end of the school year approaches, as well as summer holidays, drivers can expect to see continued pressure to think twice before getting behind the wheel intoxicated, he said.

“We definitely will still be looking,” Link added.

State police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller credited specialized education and training for the increase in arrests, as well as a decrease of alcohol-related crash deaths statewide from 544 in 2006 to 525 in 2007.

A drug recognition expert program is training troopers and municipal officers to better identify drivers under the influence of illegal or prescription drugs.

Troopers and municipal officers also are taking part in Operation Nighthawk, which offers classroom training and participation in roving patrols immediately afterward. More of that training is planned.

“We are using education, training and continued high levels of enforcement to get the job done,” Miller said in a release.