LIHU‘E — Short of hiding in bushes outside bars, Kaua‘i Police Department officers, with help from some of their friends, are pulling out all the stops in attempts to prevent people from drinking and driving. Lt. Mark Scribner, usually commander of
LIHU‘E — Short of hiding in bushes outside bars, Kaua‘i Police Department officers, with help from some of their friends, are pulling out all the stops in attempts to prevent people from drinking and driving.
Lt. Mark Scribner, usually commander of KPD Patrol Services in the Patrol Services Bureau but currently acting captain in the bureau, said he has requested Ford Mustangs or other types of vehicles for the fight against speeding and drunk driving, as most people on the island easily recognize the boat-sized Ford Crown Victoria vehicles KPD uses.
So far, such requests have been shot down.
Employees with the state Department of Public Safety Sheriff Division, many of them former police officers, have received training in using radar systems to detect speeders and are also engaged in the fight against drunk drivers, he added.
Drunk drivers have been responsible for over half of all fatal collisions on the island since 2006, according to KPD records.
A bill in the state Legislature recently approved and sent to Gov. Linda Lingle for her disposition (she has until mid-July to sign it, veto it or let it become law without her signature) would require first-time drunk-driving offenders to install ignition interlock systems on their vehicles that won’t allow vehicles to start if alcohol is detected on the drivers’ breath. (See related story on HB981 and the device.)
Another weapon that has been installed in KPD vehicles is something that looks like a rear-view mirror but is actually a camera and monitor system that, once an officer turns on his or her blue lights, actually records the previous 60 seconds of action as well as the live action, explained Lt. Dan Miyamoto, of the KPD Administrative & Technical Bureau Research & Development section.
“Video is awesome for DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol),” for prosecution and courtroom purposes, Scribner said.
The ongoing enforcement enhancements, and educational efforts, seem to be working to reduce alcohol-related fatalities, though one a year is still one too many, Scribner said.
“Hopefully we can keep it down,” he said of numbers of alcohol-related fatalities.
Enforcement tweaks like changing officer deployment times, using drug-recognition experts to detect drugged drivers who may also be drunk drivers, putting up signs and message boards “all over the place,” and other efforts seem to be paying off, he said.
“It’s been working. Education is the key,” he added.
There was just one alcohol-related fatality for the first four months of this year, while in the previous six years there were as many as three alcohol-related road deaths during the same four months. (See related charts).
Scribner said increases in the numbers of drunk-driving arrests hopefully will lead to fewer drunk-driving deaths.
“I hope that, with enforcement up, DUI will go down,” said Scribner, who is also the KPD liaison with the state Department of Transportation on enforcement initiatives against speeding, for using seat belts and car seats, and is looking into the possibility of electronic-citations systems (where a handheld computer spits out citations) for officers.
• Paul C. Curtis, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com
