BCPD Targets Underage Drinking & Driving This Month

As the busy prom, graduation and end-of-school celebration season gets underway, Bossier City police will be focusing their patrols this month on motorists under age 21 who choose to drink and drive.

Officers remind you it is illegal for people under 21 to consume alcohol, Louisiana law also makes it a crime for juveniles to operate a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration level of at least .02%. The legal limit for those 21 and older is .08%. Just one alcoholic beverage is all it can take for a young driver to be impaired and face a criminal charge.

Here's more info from a BCPD news release:

According to the National Highway Safety Commission, underage drivers who consume alcohol experience more fatalities at lower blood alcohol levels than adults. Compared to adults, young people are less experienced drivers and drinkers, which can put them at significantly greater risk for a serious crash than an adult who has consumed the same amount of alcohol and is roughly the same physical size. Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death among teens in the United States and nearly one-third of those crashes are alcohol-related.

 

The BCPD’s DWI Task Force conducts enforcement patrols year round and is funded in part by grant money provide by the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission.