Law enforcement from around the state are in the midst of a statewide push to curb impaired driving.

‘Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over’ will continue through Labor Day, Sept. 1.

Sixty-three percent of the people killed in fatal crashes worked by Louisiana State Police’s Troop D in 2013 were killed by impaired drivers, said Sgt. James Anderson, troop spokesman.

The Louisiana Highway Safety Commission is coordinating the efforts.

Campaigns such as this one help “reduce deaths and injuries,” Sulphur Police Chief Lewis Coats said in a news release.

“Obviously we want to get the word out and attain voluntary compliance,” Anderson said. “If we can encourage someone to not drink and drive, that is vastly preferential to finding someone driving impaired. We encourage people to make the right decisions by designating a driver and not riding with somebody else who’s impaired.”

Despite years of campaigns against impaired driving, it continues to be a problem.

“They know, but it’s the same reason that people engage in a variety of behaviors that are not in their best interest,” Anderson said. “They don’t think it’s going to happen to them.”

Anderson referenced the deaths of two 18-year-old women who lost their lives in Calcasieu in 2013.

“There were two common themes,” Anderon said. “Both of those young ladies got in a vehicle with somebody who was impaired and neither one was wearing a seatbelt.”

During the 2013 Labor Day holiday, 11 people were killed in vehicle accidents around the state, seven of those in alcohol-related crashes, according to numbers from the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission.

Additionally, alcohol has been a factor in around 40 percent of all vehicles deaths in recent years.

The checkpoints are a “deterrent,” Anderson said. Law enforcement also patrol alternate routes around the checkpoints looking for impaired drivers.(MGNonline)