If you drink, don't drive.

Your City Police force IS watching. And they should be. Don't drive drunk, or carelessly or recklessly. I say so. The cops say so. Your councilmembers probably all say so, do as I say, etc.

Indeed, here's Notice - It's on the city website so don't say you were not warned:

SAFE AND SOBER ENFORCEMENT BULLETIN
The Ramsey Police Department will be putting extra officers on the streets during the month of December in order to snare the impaired. Please do not drink and drive. Have a safe and happy holiday season.

And the sobering facts about unsober drivers is they risk not only their own lives, but yours and mine when sharing the road with us - something a good family man would not do to the families of others. It simply sets a bad example for the city official, school teacher, pastor or scoutmaster to be doing wrong, that way. Young people can see such things and conclude it's "okay."

Look at the facts:

Minnesota Impaired Driving Fact Sheet
Source Minnesota Department of Public Safety Office ofTraffic Safety

The legal alcohol limit for drivers in Minnesota is 0.08. It is always illegal to drive while impaired. If a motorist's alcohol concentration is at 0.08 percent or higher it is a criminal offense with penalties ranging from misdemeanor to felony. It is also a violation of civil law that triggers automatic driver license revocation for a minimum of 90 days for a first time offense.

From 2001 to 2005 Minnesota averaged 601 traffic deaths per year 216 [36 percent per year] were impaired driving related.

Over the same five years there was an average of 34,000 impaired driving incidents each year that resulted from a DWI arrest translating to almost 100 DWI arrests a day.

In 2005 the Twin Cities metro area had 48 percent ofthe impaired driving incidents and the 80 county non metro area 52 percent.

In 2005 males accounted for 76 percent of impaired driving incidents.

Of all Minnesota residents 471,760 have aDWI on record. One in every eight persons in Minnesota with a driving record including those with a license and those with a license revoked, cancelled, etc. has aDWI. 201,424 [one in 19] have two or more incidents. 94,306 [one in 41] have three or more and 1,075 have 10 or more.

Most impaired driving offenders are first time offenders. Still many offenses are committed by persons with prior incidents on their record. In 2005 14,420 [39 percent ofviolators] had prior DWIs on record.

So, that's why I say no family man would do it. There is a gender pattern and women are less a problem. We all probably have been behind the wheel after a drink or more, but many of us so infrequently we have not been caught. To get caught you do it frequently. Or you couple it with other dangerous driving characteristics - road rage aggressiveness, reckless testing the envelope, or inattentiveness to the roadway and where police are upon it. Any way you gain an arrest and conviction, even by blind bad luck, it is a risk to the rest of us - and more a risk if an incident or two is due to frequent offending or driving wickedly when you get your snoot full.

You should no more tank up and drive than take alcohol with you while hunting. It's dangerous.

To get caught twice, the one in 19, you've a problem. And if you've had a careless-reckless ticket too - you are a clear and present menace to others. Period. End of story. Some, for several reasons, clean up their act or appear to - either changing behavior or ceasing to get caught or avoiding getting charged and convicted.

And even if you've beaten a conviction on a technicality - you did the crime.