DWI arrests in the St. Louis area should increase this Memorial Day Weekend due to a new stategy put in place by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Each Missouri State Highway Patrolman will be responsible for a twenty mile stretch of highway, and will patrol that section of highway vigialantly. The main focus for law enforcement is to ticket people who are speeding and to get drunk drivers off the roadways over the holiday weekend. It’s called the Twenty Mile Trooper Program.

Law enforecement believes this program will work as good or better than traditional checkpoints at removing drivers who are under the influence of alcohol from the roads. It is important for drunk driving attorneys to pay attention to drunk driving arrests that occur within the Twenty Mile Trooper Program because the troopers are out with the stated purpose of making drunk driving arrests. These arrests will have to be investigated specifically for illegal stops by over zealous troopers.

Drunk driving arrests that occur over holiday weekends must always be investigated for the possibility of illegal or pretextual stops.  Law enforcement tends to put in the news how successful these programs are, and they evaluate the success by the number of arrests made.  It has been announced that these special patrols will take place on Highway 44 and Highway 70, so be aware if you live in Fenton, Eureka, or St. Charles.

Source: www.fox2now.com, “Police Cracking Down on Drunk Drivers This Holiday Weekend,” Anthony Kiekow, May 24, 2013.

• Our firm specializes in the field of drunk driving defense. We pay special attention to issues such as illegal stops, especially for arrests that occur during a holiday weekend. To find out more please visit our webpage with more information on DWI’s and our DWI Results.