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Otter Tail among deadliest counties
Published 11:37am Monday, December 14, 2009Drivers can expect to see increased DWI patrols on Otter Tail County roads following the county’s designation as one of the deadliest for alcohol-related crashes.
Otter Tail County holds the last spot on the Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) list of the 13 deadliest counties for impaired driving. The rankings were determined based on the number of alcohol-related deaths and serious injuries from 2006 to 2008.
Ten people died in alcohol-related crashes in Otter Tail County during that period, according to the DPS, while 21 were seriously injured. The figures were released by the DPS Friday.
The Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office was notified last summer that the county was likely to be on the list, said Dep. Jon Karger. The last time the county made the top 13 was three years ago, Karger said, and at one point Otter Tail County was within the top 10.
Counties named to the list will receive federal funding to pay for officer overtime in 2010, Karger said. The funding is distributed through the Office of Traffic Safety to the State Patrol, which runs Operation NightCAP, an overtime enforcement program using saturation patrols to identify impaired drivers.
It’s a program that affects the sheriff’s office and local police departments, Karger said. The funding equates to at least two additional deputies on the road during concentrated DWI waves.
“They’re supposed to be highly visible, so you’ll know when something’s happening,” Karger said.
The intent of high-visibility enforcement is to generate awareness of law enforcement and encourage drivers to make plans to avoid impaired driving, according to the DPS.
Karger said it may take a couple of years to bring DWI crash numbers back down. When that happens, the federal funding will disappear and the number of alcohol-related accidents will likely go back up again, he said.
The counties preceding Otter Tail on the list of the deadliest 13 are Hennepin, Ramsey, Anoka, St. Louis, Dakota, Wright, Stearns, Rice, Olmsted, Washington, Scott and Sherburne. The number of alcohol-related deaths across all counties reached 267 between 2006 and 2008.
One in eight Minnesota drivers has a DWI on record, according to the DPS. Between 2005 and 2009, authorities across the 13 deadliest counties made one DWI arrest per 16 traffic stops.
