ERPD Stepping up DUI Enforcement over Holidays

The East Ridge Police Department is partnering with the Tennessee Highway Safety Office (THSO) to enhance drunk-driving enforcement from December 15 to January 1, surrounding the holiday season. The statewide Booze It and Lose It campaign is part of a national mobilization to prevent drunk driving.

East Ridge police will increase officer presence on the streets during this period along with concentrated saturation patrols on select dates.

Increased state and local messaging about the dangers of drunk driving, coupled with sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols, aim to drastically reduce alcohol-impaired driving.

“This time last year, there were 223 lives lost to impaired-driving crashes across Tennessee,” said THSO Director Vic Donoho. “Our partnership with local law enforcement is vital to combat drunk driving this holiday season.”

A single DUI conviction can cost an individual $5,000 or more, in addition to jail time. An offender could also be required to attend drug and alcohol treatment or to install an ignition interlock device inside his/her vehicle. Any penalty imposed by law pales in comparison to the injury or death of a loved one.

The THSO provides grant funding to support East Ridge Police efforts during the Booze It and Lose It holiday enforcement campaign. For more information about the THSO, visit www.tntrafficsafety.org or contact Arriale Tabson at Arriale.Tabson@TN.gov.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.