Maine State Police and other law enforcement agencies will beef up patrols Monday night in anticipation that more people will be driving drunk as they celebrate the beginning of a new year.
An increased police presence on New Year’s Eve doesn’t necessarily mean state police will be setting up sobriety check-points. Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said roving patrols are more likely.
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McCausland said state police enforcement of drunken driving laws will target areas that statistically have produced a high number of drunk driving arrests. He declined to identify those locations.
“We will be out in force New Year’s Eve,” McCausland said. “But it won’t stop there. It will continue on into the new year.”
McCausland said the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety recently distributed $440,000 in federal funds to 52 police departments across Maine to be used to combat drunken and impaired driving.
Those funds are part of a national “drive sober” campaign that will pay for increased police patrols and overtime wages for departments between Dec. 14 and Jan. 2 and from Aug. 16 through Sept. 2.
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