Daily Egyptian
Fall '03 Edition
Holidays and increased patrols keep DUIs stable in Carbondale
Moustafa Ayad
Daily Egyptian
Last year this time, the toll was rising. And when the holiday season ended, after Thanksgiving and the mass movements of people traveling to see loved ones and family members, the deaths had amounted to 1,561. It is a number slim in comparison to the 17,000 fatalities recorded annually in the United States.
Illinois alone had a death toll of 648. During the holidays, the risk of accidents are heightened as those who head home race to the highways to see friends. In Carbondale, DUIs are always priority. With two police departments patrolling the streets, the arrest rate is higher but frees up the University police for more residential checks.
Capt. Todd Sigler of the University Police Department said the rate of DUIs seems to decrease during the absence of students, but the threat of an inebriated driver always lingers.
"Between ourselves, the Carbondale Police Department and the Illinois State Police," Sigler said, "Carbondale is heavily patrolled as a resistive stance against DUIs."
Steve Odum, Carbondale police interim chief, said officers tend to patrol Main and Walnut streets and University and Illinois avenues heavily during break times.
"We do try to step up patrols during periods of time when there's more travelers on the road and there's more people driving," Odum said. "The more people driving, the more drivers there are, the higher the likelihood of having people driving impaired."
The streets that demand extra man hours usually are the most traffic-ridden areas of town, leading officers to patrol the section of Carbondale with a skillful eye.
"Those are main arteries in town that people are traveling," he said. "That's where they'll move to. The traffic concentration is away from the bar areas on Grand Avenue, so they'll patrol where there's a higher traffic concentration."
However, roadblocks are rarely an option exercised by both departments. Roadblocks and safety checkpoints are often used during holiday travel times in an attempt to yield more DUI arrests.
The expense alone is enough not to permit the Carbondale Police Department to implement such activities, but nevertheless, the University Police Department has worked in conjunction with the Illinois State Police netting several drunk drivers who may have potentially injured themselves or others.
"DUIs are just part of what we are responsible for," Sigler said. "We are responsible for a lot other than traffic-related incidents. Residential areas are heavily patrolled during breaks.
"Often our stops are before they have traveled great distances. In Carbondale, there is a lot of the traveling at low speeds. You are not dealing with 55 mph zones."
Moustafa Ayad can be reached at: mayad@dailyegyptian.com
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