On behalf of Weisman, Kennedy & Berris Co., L.P.A. posted in Car Accidents on Friday, August 30, 2013.

The common denominator underscoring many public awareness campaigns — whether focused on health issues, education, traffic safety or some other matter — is simplicity of delivery. That is, messages intended for mass dissemination across Ohio or nationally tend to be both compact and direct.

Like this one: “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over.”

There’s very little that is ambiguous about that directive, and repetition certainly reinforces its gist. The Drive Sober traffic initiative is national in scope and recurs yearly in states across the country, including Ohio.

Its stated goal: to prevent car accidents by identifying and getting drunk drivers off the roads.

The program is administered under the aegis of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and is implemented across the country through government grant money. The timing for the initiative purposefully targets a portion of the summer holidays during which there is especially heavy motorized traffic on streets and highways.

That means the Labor Day weekend and the weeks immediately preceding it, which are well associated with clogged roads and an increased number of motor vehicle crashes.

As is clear from its title, the Drive Sober campaign targets drunk motorists. The NHTSA states that, on average, nearly 170 people die in DUI-related accidents each year across the country during the Labor Day weekend.

Ohio is an obvious concern. Statistics from the Ohio State Highway Patrol indicate that well more than 14,000 drunk-driving arrests have been made in the state this year just through mid-August.

The enforcement campaign will centrally feature a heightened police presence on state roads. Federal regulators say that the additional patrols have a strong deterrent effect and can reduce DUI-related fatalities significantly.

Source: WCPO Cincinnati, “‘Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over’ program looks to cut down on drunk driving over Labor Day weekend,” Casey Weldon, Aug. 15, 2013