Reporting An Impaired Driver In Palm Beach County Can Get You $100

By reporting an impaired driver driving in Palm Beach County, one can get $100 as reward.

The number of drunk drivers increased during the holiday party season, so county residents are being enlisted in the DUI battle.

“It gives law enforcement additional eyes on the road. Everyone should have an interest in getting impaired drivers off the roads because it could be someone who hits your loved one,” according to Donna Bryan, spokeswoman for the Safety Council of the Palm Beaches.

Palm Beach County has had the Mobile Eyes program since 2001 due to which hundreds of individuals have been taken into custody till now.

The Mobile Eyes program works simply: If the people living there saw an impaired driver on the road, they call 911 and an officer is sent to the location. If the suspected driver is taken into custody then the police fill out a Mobile Eyes report that is sent to the Safety Council. The individual who reported the impaired driver then gets $100 as reward.

It usually takes almost 2 weeks for the DUI spotters to get their cash reward. So any person attempting to get a little extra holiday cash is not so lucky. There is also a $500 lifetime limit on how much an individual can collect from Mobile Eyes. But according to Bryan, many individuals don’t get the cash as they are just happy to get a drunken driver off the road and for saving the lives of others.

The program works all around the year. Every year, Mobile Eyes hands out 30 to 40 cash rewards to DUI spotters. In 2014, 24 rewards were awarded.

Safety officials put extra focus on the program during the holiday season. The deadliest times of the year on the road are between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day in which the number of accidents and fatalities rise every year.

Deigo Asencio, a longtime volunteer with the Palm Beach County Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving said, “It has prevented drunken driving crashes”.

It’s an additional tool to cope with an entrenched issue.

Asencio added, “It’s big. Every year, we have about 4,000 people booked in Palm Beach County for DUI-related offenses. That’s a lot of people. There’s still lot of drunk driving going on.”

Law enforcement also will be out in full force to cope with impaired driving.

On Wednesday, it was announced by the Florida Highway Patrol that it is starting its participation in the national Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign from 1st of January.

Alcohol-related accidents and fatalities have been decreasing all around the State. Almost 1,004 individuals died from alcohol-related accidents in the year 2009, compared to 859 last year.

But in Palm Beach, alcohol-related traffic fatalities have begun going back up. In the year 2011, 44 individuals died from alcohol-related accidents in the county. In 2013, 51 fatalities occurred due to alcohol.

Impaired drivers cause about a third of all traffic fatalities.

Asencio said, “It’s an ongoing battle. We need to make people understand it’s a serious crime”.

News Source: www.Sun-Sentinel.com