Southern Wisconsin Counties Will Team Up To Crack Down On Drunken Driving

Four southern Wisconsin sheriff’s departments are teaming up to crack down on drunken driving over the next eight months. The plan is to put up to 16 additional deputies on the roads in the four counties on designated evenings between now and September.

A $40,000 federal grant will pay for overtime wages for the extra deputies in Dane, Rock, Jefferson and Sauk counties. The state Transportation Department’s Director of Transportation Safety David Pabst said those officers will focus only on arresting drunken drivers.

“What’s neat about that is when you have a task force — all these counties working together towards the same problem — you actually see a movement in the numbers of drunk driving arrests. Because they’ll go up, but also the incidence of drunk driving does go down,” Pabst said.

The program begins this Saturday night in an effort to reduce the number of Badger football fans who choose to drive home drunk after this weekend’s game with Ohio State.

To promote the program, the DOT is using a photogenic prop — a Crown Victoria police cruiser that was turned in for trade. Its front half is painted like a state patrol squad car, while the back half is painted like a yellow taxi. Its license plate reads, “PICK ONE.” Lettering on the front — the side painted like a patrol car — reads “This ride more than $1,000.” On the back door, which is on the half painted like a taxi, the lettering says “This ride about $20.”

The four sheriff’s departments says they will use social media to alert drivers about which nights there will be extra OWI deputies on the road.