On Arizona highways and streets this week officers, deputies, and troopers are searching for impaired drivers.
The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety reports 87 local and state agencies have extra officers working overtime to catch impaired drivers this holiday weekend.
If drivers are arrested, charged, and convicted of DUI, they face mandatory jail time, the possibility of losing their license for at least 30 days, and a mandatory ignition interlock device in their car says Tucson DUI defense attorney Michael Harwin.
“In a place like Tucson, Arizona, almost everybody needs to drive to get to work, drop their kids at school, go to the grocery store and those restrictions can be really onerous,” said Harwin, who is a former DUI prosecutor in Phoenix.
Harwin says a DUI conviction can have long-lasting repercussions especially for anyone who needs a state-issued professional license to work, “We see a lot of people, good people, doctors, attorneys, nurses, and many students come in here, and we wonder and they wonder why they didn’t take an Uber home from Fourth Avenue or Congress Street.”
Harwin’s advice for holiday partiers is the same advice Tucson DUI enforcement Sgt. Terry O'Hara gives drivers, “If you've consumed alcohol use a sober designated driver. Call a family member or friend or take a taxi.”
DUI patrols will continue Halloween evening and run until 2:00 a.m., according to the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety.
