DUI task force arrives in Albany

ALBANY — With the Memorial Day holiday approaching, the Albany Police Department, the Georgia State Patrol, the Dougherty County Sheriff’s Office and the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety announced Thursday the deployment of a new joint DUI Task Force Unit in Albany.

Effective immediately, the GSP Nighthawks will patrol the streets in search of impaired drivers, officials said Thursday at a news conference.

The GSP Nighthawks DUI Task Force unit is funded by a grant from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and consists of highly trained DUI enforcement officers. The six troopers assigned to Southwest Georgia will patrol between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. in search of impaired drivers.

“Last year in Georgia, there were 1,432 people killed on our roads,” said Director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety Harris Blackwood. “One out of four of those, 25 percent, was killed because of alcohol.”

The decision to move a Nighthawks unit to Albany was based on the large number of DUI crashes and arrests in the area. Despite advance public notice about Operation Rolling Thunder in December 2015, 98 DUI arrests were made over three nights in Albany, Lee County and Worth County. During a similar operation in August 2014, 101 arrests were made.

“Moving the DUI unit to this area is one thing we can do to reduce the carnage on our roads here in Southwest Georgia,” said Blackwood.

The Georgia State Patrol Nighthawks Unit was started in 2004 with 10 specially trained troopers assigned to patrol for impaired drivers in Athens and metro Atlanta. The success of those efforts led to the expansion of the task-force in 2009.

“If you look at what the fatality rate is in our state for the last couple of years, over 1,400, and put that in contrast with how many homicides occur in our state, on average between about five or six hundred,” said Department of Public Safety Commissioner Mark W. McDonough, “(one has to ask) why is it that dying in an automobile seems to be socially acceptable? It is a senseless loss when someone dies in an automobile at the hands of a drunk driver.”

According to McDonough, alcohol is not the sole facilitator of impaired drivers.

“We have a wave of prescription medication today that is being used by folks, and folks think that because it has been prescribed to them, it covers them driving,” McDonough warned. “But that’s the reason there’s caution on that medication. Just because your doctor says you need this prescription for your medical condition doesn’t mean that gives you carte blanche to drive under the influence of that drug.

“I caution you to make sure with your prescriptions, that you read those warnings. Our message is very clear; don’t drink and drive, don’t take drugs and drive. The most selfish thing that you can do is knowingly get behind the wheel of a car under the influence.”

Officials urge everyone, including restaurant and bar owners, to download the GOHS free DriveSoberGA app. The app provides phone numbers to AAA Tow To Go and local cab companies in 11 Georgia cities across the state.

“A free app and a small cab fare costs a lot less than the thousands of dollars you will have to pay if you are arrested and charged with DUI,” said Blackwood. “Not to mention the lives that are being saved when impaired drivers stay off our roads.”

“Most of all,” said APD Chief Michael Persley, “we want to make sure everyone has a very safe and happy Memorial Day weekend.”