RUMFORD – Fourteen police departments in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties were awarded more than $25,000 in federal grants Thursday for additional drunken driving enforcement.
Overall, 54 departments statewide received more than $100,000 to fund officers’ overtime for operating under the influence enforcement until the end of September, stated Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland in a release.
Rumford and Mexico police, who received $2,500 and $2,464, respectively, are to conduct joint OUI roadblock details and saturation patrols to combat the problem, said Rumford Detective Sgt. George Cayer on Thursday.
“We will be targeting areas of Rumford and Mexico where we have had the highest volume of OUI arrests,” Cayer said.
In Rumford, there are nine drinking establishments, four of which are on the island, and one bar in Mexico, Patrolman David Bean said.
In the last 12 years, Cayer said Rumford officers have made in excess of 150 OUI arrests annually with the grant money.
“I think the lowest we ever got was 82 in one year. I did 47 myself in one year in the 1980s,” Cayer said.
“Thanks to the grants, the numbers of arrests have decreased, and the higher levels of blood-alcohol content we saw in drivers have also decreased over the years,” he said.
“However, the national standards are still extremely high in the United States – there are an average of 17,000 deaths per year due to alcohol-related crashes,” Cayer said.
In 2004, Rumford officers responded to 143 OUI-related incidents.
Of that number, there were 51 complaints of reported drunken driving, 65 people were arrested for first offense OUI, 13 for second-offense, three for third-offense, four arrested for OUI-drugs, five juveniles for zero-tolerance violations, and two arrests for OUI refusals to submit to testing.
“We have seen a significant decrease in OUI-related crashes since the 1980s and 1990s,” Cayer said, crediting the enforcement grant program.
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