|
Home Search |
Published on Sunday, April 20, 2003
in the Bradenton Herald
More than 300 people gathered for a candlelight vigil in the state capital last month to pay tribute to lives taken by drunken drivers.
Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Jason Eason said as he watched them, he realized there could have been a candle there for every DUI arrest he's made in the last year.
"When I make a DUI arrest, it's just one less person out there who might harm someone," Eason said.
Eason and fellow Trooper Richard Moore, who both work in Manatee County, were honored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving at the vigil for each making more than 100 driving-under-the-influence arrests in 2002.
Eason made 153 DUI arrests in 2002 and Moore logged 135, according to FHP records.
Only 20 of the more than 1,700 troopers statewide made more than 100 DUI arrests last year, according to FHP spokesman Lt. Mike Rushing.
"It's a pretty elite club," Rushing said.
A 2001 Florida Department of Transportation study showed Manatee County had the second-highest number of alcohol-related crashes among Florida's 20 most populous counties. Only Hillsborough County ranked worse. Neighboring Sarasota County was 13th among counties with populations of more than 200,000.
As a response to those figures, in 2002, local FHP officials established the DUI Task Force, a trio of troopers focused on taking impaired drivers of the roads. DUI laws in Florida allows police to seize a car if the driver is operating under the influence and already has a suspended license caused by a DUI.
"I truly love putting impaired people in jail," said Moore, a 11-year FHP veteran. "I see the difference it makes. I see it through the 20 percent drop in drunk-driving fatalities since we started."
"Every time I get in my patrol car and put someone in jail, I believe I'm saving someone's life," Moore said. "I'm that person's life because as intoxicated as they are, they would never make it home, and I'm saving someone else's life."