This past holiday weekend proved itself to be a safe one for the cities of Auburn and Opelika.
"Safety-wise it was a really good weekend," said Thomas Stofer, captain of the Auburn Police Department. "Nothing out of the ordinary reared its ugly head."
Capt. Melvin Harrison of the Opelika Police Department also said nothing out of the ordinary happened in his city, calling it an average weekend.
Harrison said the police department there considered the holiday weekend to be between July 2- 6, so they were looking out especially hard during that time. Harrison reported 84 traffic citations, but no DUI's during that period. Most of the traffic citations were seat-belt violations.
"We were out looking for impaired drivers, but it seems when you're specifically out there looking for them, that's when you do not find any, and when you're not, that's when they're running all over you," Harrison said.
Harrison also reported having no car wrecks in Opelika this weekend. Stofer said there were no major car wrecks in Auburn either.
"We are happy to say that we had an uneventful weekend: no one was killed, and no one was seriously injured. Everyone stayed safe," Stofer said.
Part of the reason for the especially safe holiday weekend may be an increase in national safety efforts. Operation C.A.R.E. lists the July 4th holiday as one of the six weekends out of the year which require
extra police attention.
Operation C.A.R.E. is an international safety program which stands for Combined Accident Reduction Effort. Operation C.A.R.E. covers 16 districts in the state of Alabama.
The program was started 1977 as a collaboration between Michigan State Police and Indiana State Police. Sergeant Jill Bennett with the Michigan State Police Traffic Safety Division says that the program is intended for increased traffic safety for holiday weekends.
"The program is one of the longest-running traffic safety programs in history," Bennett said.
Operation C.A.R.E. is mostly on freeways and focuses on anything related to traffic safety, especially stranded motorists, drinking and driving, and not buckling your seat belt.
"Our whole motive is to reduce crashes, and we are really proud of it because we started it," said Bennett, a national board member for Operation C.A.R.E.
Within a year after it began, Operation C.A.R.E. had spread to all 50 states and the American Territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is also now in the Canadian provinces.
"We know we aren't going to save every life. We may save a few here and there, and that is our goal," Bennett said.
"If we get one person to pick up a newspaper and say, 'Hey, the police will be out this weekend, we need to drive safer, a little slower and not drink and drive,' then we have done our job."
Operation C.A.R.E also has 24-hour volunteers working at rest stops during holiday weekends to provide coffee, cookies and literature on public safety.
"The main thing is just getting the message out there to the public that they still have to make safe decisions," said Bennett. "We don't want to be out there writing tickets; we just want you to get to your destination safely because it's a holiday weekend and they're meant to be fun."
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