News Release, Maryland State Police
March 18, 2019 update: The St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office, with support from the Maryland State Police, held a sobriety checkpoint on Saturday, March 16, 2019. During the course of the operation at Route 235 and Valley Drive in Lexington Park, 437 vehicles drove through the checkpoint and two motorists were subsequently arrested for impaired driving.
(PIKESVILLE, Md.) – Maryland State Police arrested close to 100 people for driving while impaired and issued close to 1,000 speeding citations over the St. Patrick’s Day holiday.
From March 16 to 18, troopers arrested 89 people for driving under the influence, issued 999 speeding citations, 3,039 additional citations and 3,933 warnings and conducted 5,843 traffic stops. State police also investigated 141 crashes, including three that were fatal, and answered 5,189 calls for service over that span.
This effort was due in part to saturation patrols and sobriety checkpoints conducted throughout the state police’s 23 barracks. The additional enforcement over the weekend was bolstered by impaired driving saturation patrol funds from the Maryland Department of Transportation’s Highway Safety Office.
The State Police Impaired Driving Reduction Effort Team, otherwise known as the SPIDRE team, also assisted in the effort over the weekend. From March 13 to 17, the SPIDRE team made 10 DUI arrests. Since its inception in May 2013, the SPIDRE team has recorded 2,940 DUI arrests, 137 criminal arrests and 8,955 traffic stops while also issuing 19,808 citations and 4,417 warnings. The goal of the SPIDRE team is to focus on reducing alcohol related crashes in Maryland by targeting areas across the state with high crash rates involving impaired drivers.
According to the Maryland Department of Transportation, 558 people died on Maryland’s roads and roughly one-third of those involved impaired driving in 2017. Impaired drivers injured 3,200 in 2017. All of these deaths and injuries were preventable.