For Immediate Release: Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Contact: Tony Mangan, Department of Public Safety, 773-6196

Highway Patrol to Conduct Statewide Sobriety Checkpoints/Saturation Patrols

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota’s Highway Patrol plans to conduct sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols statewide during the month of June.

The Patrol does sobriety checkpoints in a select number of counties each month. The goal of the checkpoints is to discourage people from drinking and then driving.

Colonel Craig Price, the superintendent of the Highway Patrol, says this is the first time that the Highway Patrol has done either checkpoints or saturation patrols in every county possible in one month. The saturation patrols are designed to place more troopers in a particular area at one time.

“We will still do sobriety checkpoints in some counties as we do every month,” Price says. “But by adding saturation patrols in other counties, we can put more troopers out on the highways to help promote the message of don’t drink and drive.”

The sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols will be done in counties where the state Highway Patrol has jurisdiction. Price says with the summer travel season now underway, this was a good time for such an effort.

“We encourage people  who have been drinking not to drive,” says the colonel. ““We want people to have fun this summer, but also be safe drivers for not only themselves, but also for their families and friends.”

Price says local law enforcement agencies also will assist the Patrol with the checkpoints and patrols.

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