D.C. police are reminding people to drive sober for the safety of themselves and others this holiday weekend.
To further prove the point, the department said it’s partnering with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to focus on avoiding impaired and distracted driving.
The partner’s goal is to make sure that drivers are safe on the road, with a focus on drivers that put other people in harm’s way, a news release said.
Officers in D.C. police’s seven districts are instructed to concentrate exclusively on “traffic enforcement and education to drivers who are under the influence, distracted, or driving in an unsafe manner,” police said.
“We want everyone to enjoy themselves with all that the District of Columbia has to offer for the Fourth of July weekend,” said Ashan Benedict, interim D.C. police chief.
He added that the police department “has zero tolerance for people who get behind the wheel if they are impaired, distracted, or put others at risk by their unsafe driving.”
D.C. police said they will administer a traffic safety checkpoint between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Saturday in the 1900 block of Vermont Street in Northwest to further “promote public safety by taking suspected impaired drivers off the road.”
The District has also recently seen a rise in fatal traffic crashes, as 25 people have died so far this year, according to police’s traffic data as of June 30. The city instituted its Vision Zero program in 2015 with the objective of getting rid of fatal and serious traffic deaths by next year.
