Holiday highway safety focus on DUI program - Hands Across the Border

ALBANY - Motorists who plan to travel this Labor Day holiday will see more blue lights and uniforms along Georgia highways as law enforcement from six states join together for the 18th Annual Hands Across the Border DUI enforcement initiative, according to Governor's Office of Highway Safety Information Officer Jim Schuler.

Hands Across the Border is an annual campaign in which law enforcement officers from neighboring Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and North and South Carolina join together with Georgia officials in initiating checkpoints along the borders of the states. "All the law enforcement agencies across the state and surrounding states join in the fight to prevent drunk driving," said Schuler. "Law enforcement is having to do more and more with less and less, and this campaign is a man-power multiplier."

Schuler said that during Hands Across the Border, law enforcement officers from across the state will be available to assist smaller police forces with sobriety checkpoints. "Officers will be out doing sobriety checks," he said. "They will also be checking for valid licenses, tags, insurance and seatbelt checks." Schuler said this Labor Day holiday will also have more law enforcement on the road than usual due to two other campaigns overlapping with the Hands Across the Border campaign: Operation Zero Tolerance and the 100 Days of Summer H.E.A.T. Operation Zero Tolerance, which also concentrates on removing drunk drivers from the road, and 100 Days of Summer H.E.A.T., a campaign in which H.E.A.T. teams and law enforcement officers throughout Georgia target aggressive speeders, will also continue during the Hands Across the Border DUI initiative. "It was just how the calendar year fell," said Schuler. "We didn't plan on all these campaigns to fall on the same weekend." He said the hope is that the increased presence of law enforcement on the roads will deter drivers from making unsafe decisions. "OZT is about catching drunk drivers in the state, while Hands is about catching them whey come in through the state borders," said Schuler.

He said that all three programs focus on reducing the number of crashes, fatalities and serious injuries on Georgia highways. "Georgia is the state with the largest land mass east of the Mississippi and has the second-largest number of counties in the nation, second to Texas," said Schuler. "It's a big state, and the 16 traffic enforcement networks the Governor's Office of Highway Safety has set up across the state will hopefully help reduce the number of traffic crashes this year over the Labor Day holiday." He said that motorists should have their driver's license and insurance cards ready when they reach a checkpoint while traveling. "As long as you are following the traffic laws and have valid insurance and licenses, then it should only be a five-minute delay," said Schuler. resource: albanyherald.com