The Dunn County Sheriff’s Office, Menomonie Police Department, Boyceville Police Department, Colfax Police Department and Elk Mound Police Department received a grant from WI Bureau of Traffic Safety (BOTS) for just under $18,000 to conduct high visibility patrols to prevent and apprehend impaired drivers. This grant is to cover overtime to put additional officers on the streets at selected times to create high-visibility patrols. This grant runs from October 2024 until Sept 30, 2025.
Counties get selected for the grants due to crash data that is pulled from crash reports completed in each county. In WI someone is killed or injured every two hours by impaired driving.
Captain Travis Mayer, of the Dunn County Sheriff’s Office said, “our goal will be to target times of high concentrations of impaired driving by having high visibility patrol to prevent impaired driving and take enforcement action when needed. We would much rather have someone see several squads in the area and make a smart choice to call a ride or pick a designated driver at the start of the night rather than making an arrest or worse yet have to investigate a crash because someone made the choice to drive impaired”.
In 2023, there were 5,976 alcohol related crashes in WI that claimed 159 lives. In Dunn County we want to do our part to lower that number.
Wisconsin, like many other states, continue to see an increased problem with drugged drivers on the road. A person’s ability to drive safely is compromised by Illegal drugs and sometimes even prescription or over the counter medications. These impaired drivers are frequently found out during the daytime hours, we urge that if you see a possible impaired driver report it to local law enforcement.
To combat drugged driving WI has more than 390 Drug recognition experts (DRE), which is among the most in the nation. Combined, the local agencies involved in the grant have 5 DREs.
Dunn County Sheriff's Office media release.
