Sober or slammer policy is in effect

South Carolina law enforcement officers are done with complicated explanations of driving under the influence laws.
They’ve simplified their message: sober or slammer.

It’s a message that should be easy to understand, said S.C. Highway Patrol Capt. Melvin Warren, who spoke during a press conference Friday about the initiative in Florence.

“In a nutshell, you drive sober or you end up in the slammer — bottom line,” Warren said.

The highway patrol teamed up with other agencies — such as the Florence Police Department and the Florence County Sheriff’s Office — for the Sober or Slammer Campaign, which began Friday and concludes Labor Day.

The campaign aims to decrease the number of traffic fatalities and to arrest those who choose to drive impaired.

There have been 27 crashes in Florence County, which resulted in 32 highway fatalities, according to the S.C. Department of Highway Safety. Eleven, or about 40 percent, of those crashes were DUI-related.

Florence area officers, along with agencies across the state, will step up enforcement in an effort to bring down the highway death rate — which tends to increase in later summer, just before Labor Day, Warren said.

“Most people think a lot of impressive (arrest) numbers will come out of this operation and there’s no doubt that these numbers will be impressive,” Florence Police Chief Anson Shells said. “But the most impressive thing is the lives that are saved.”

People who are arrested for DUI are people of all types, from the town drunk to the soccer mom, Warren said.

“Some still consider it socially acceptable to drink and drive,” he said. “People that wouldn’t break in to someone’s house or steal a grape from the grocery store will drink and drive.”

Columbia resident Lisa Radvansky spoke at the press conference and said her son Chad paid the ultimate price five years ago for his choice to drive impaired. He was returning to Coastal Carolina University in Conway, where he had been a student for two weeks, when he died in a crash in Marion County.

Radvansky said she’s convinced the alcohol impaired her son’s judgment.

“As difficult as it is to get that call that somebody’s been locked up, it would be much better than to receive the phone call that I got,” she said.

Radvansky said she made a decision to speak publicly about her son’s bad choice 11 days after his death because she knew she could offer a different perspective on the issue of drunken driving.

“I think people have an image of drunk drivers, they think they are just the bum off the street,” she said. “But it’s good people that make poor choices ...  I don’t call it a car accident. It’s not an accident when the choices they made are preventable.”