Although Labor Day weekend delivered some much needed cooler temperatures for most in the Houston area, the holiday did bring the heat others as it was also a no-refusal weekend. During no-refusal weekends, motorists do not have the choice to decline testing to check their blood-alcohol level.
This Labor Day’s no-refusal weekend prompted officers to issue DWIs to 70 motorists in Montgomery County, from Thursday night to Monday morning – more than twice the arrests made last year, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Twitter page.
During a no-refusal weekend: if a driver does decline the test, a search warrant is issued to take a sample of their blood for examination in order to determine their blood alcohol level.
No-refusal weekends are part of a federal grant program that allows for extra law enforcement, and in this case nurses, to be on hand during time periods that show statistically higher instances of DWIs.
By the Numbers – according to Warren Diepraam, assistant district attorney for Montgomery County:
- Labor Day DWI Arrests 2010: 39
- Labor Day DWI search warrants 2010: 11
- Labor Day DWI arrests 2011: 70
- Labor Day DWI search warrants 2011: 9
Diepraam claims that a DWI case typically costs the person charged anywhere from $15,000-$20,000.
Read the original article here.
