Extra DWI Patrols Super Bowl Evening

Phillip Cummings was just 23 when he died in 1994. He was hit head-on by a drunken driver on a freeway exit ramp just south of the Minnetonka border in Eden Prairie.

"It was terrible. It changed everything. It turned everything upside down," his father, Jon Cummings said, reflecting on the tragedy.

And it's one tragedy that the Minnesota Department of Public Safety wants to stop from happening tonight. So as locals gather to watch the Super Bowl, extra officers will be on the roads targeting druken drivers.

Lt. Eric Roeske of the Minnesota State Patrol has said, “Drivers arrested for DWI will find their lives in very poor field position with consequences such as jail time, loss of license and huge costs.”

According to the Minnesota DPS, 1,400 people were arrested for DWI during Super Bowl weekends from 2007 through 2009. And, during Super Bowl weekends from 2006 through 2008, alcohol-related crashes accounted for five of seven motorists killed; all five were not wearing their seat belts.

“The key to the game is to hand your keys off to a sober driver,” Roeske said. And Cummings couldn’t agree more.

"If you know you are going to go out and you know you are going to drink, leave your car at home. By protecting yourself, you protect everybody else," he said.

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FACTS TO KNOW:

• In Minnesota it is illegal to drive with a blood-alcohol content greater than .08.
• Hennepin County is ranked number one on the DPS list of "most dangerous" counties for impaired driving. Between 2007 and 2009, Hennepin County saw 61 alcohol-related deaths and 144 alcohol-related serious injuries.
• To-date in 2011, there have been 15 traffic deaths in Minnesota compared to 27 at this time in 2010.