For the week of December 4 - 10, 2002

Bellevue increases patrols to decrease DUI numbers

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By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer

Arrests for DUI in Bellevue are expected to rise as the result of a $9,000 federal grant awarded to the Bellevue Marshal’s Office.

The money has funded a $3,500 video camera, mounted in a patrol car, to record traffic stops, and will pay for $5,500 worth of overtime traffic duty. The overtime has already contributed to the six DUI arrests made last week, and is expected to have an impact during the holiday period.

"That’s when we’re going to be out hard and heavy," Bellevue Marshal Randy Tremble said.

Tremble said each of the office’s three deputies would put in at least four hours of traffic overtime each week this winter. He said the video camera would help in DUI prosecutions, which are very time-consuming.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration makes annual awards of grant money to the states, which decide how to distribute it. For fiscal year 2003, Idaho was awarded $675,000 in grants involving DUI reduction and increased seatbelt use. Joe Peagler, public information coordinator with the Idaho Office for Highway Safety, said Bellevue was awarded its share due to the increasing amount of traffic flowing through the small town on Highway 75.

Tremble said only about a third of DUI arrests are of Bellevue residents, though most of the remainder are of Blaine County residents.

Peagler said the money distributed to Bellevue came out of a $350,000 Incentive Grant, which is awarded to states with strong DUI laws. He said those include lowering the legal alcohol limit from .1 percent to .08 percent blood alcohol content, and the state’s open-container law.

Last year, alcohol was involved in almost 16,000 vehicle fatalities nationwide. In Idaho in 2001, drunk drivers caused 32 percent of vehicle accidents, killing 90 people and injuring more than 1,400. Usually, drunk drivers kill themselves or passengers in their vehicles; only 14 of the 90 fatalities were of unimpaired people who got hit.

About 10,000 drivers are arrested for DUI in the state each year.

This week’s news of record lists 11 DUI convictions in Fifth District Court in Hailey for the period Nov. 15-26.

 

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