Zombies to scare you out of drinking and driving in Utah

As a practicing DUI lawyer in Seattle I'm constantly surfing the Internet for DUI related news.  Often times the news I find is very sad and usually involves a negative article about DUI relates news, a vehicular homicide case, or some other news article about some repeat DUI offender.  But sometimes I come across something really interesting, and that's what this post is about.

An article titled, Zombies to scare you out of drinking and driving was in the Salt Lake Tribune earlier this week.  Here is an excerpt from the article

Law enforcement officers want to make sure people know how horrifying it can be for the living to drive drunk and hope a scary safety campaign will keep them from driving under the influence and potentially joining the ranks of the dead.  Zombies Against Drunk Driving (a real group) has teamed up with law enforcement for the two-day campaign. Beginning Friday, officers and ghoulish actors will be at two downtown Salt Lake City locations to scare "the bajeebees" out of anyone planning to drink and drive and share safety reminders, according to a campaign news release.

Frankly this sounds like an interesting idea.  It sounds like these law enforcement agencies are just about raising awareness with these crazy ideas.  A few months ago for a University of Utah football game, I guess this same agency was walking around giving the tailgaters spatulas with anti-drinking and driving messages.  

I'm really surprised I haven't heard about anything like this in Seattle.  I would say the closest thing the City of Seattle has done in attempting to prevent DUIs but at the same time not go completely overzealous in their patrols.  Was the change to the parking meters to allow for all night parking so I person can go out.  Have a good time.  Take a cab home and not worry about their car being towed in the morning.  I can't tell you how many times I have met with people and that was the sole reason they decided to drive home.  Just because they didn't want their car to get toward or have to pay for a ticket.  

Maybe someday the City of Seattle will recognize preventing DUI's is not about increasing the DUI patrols, increasing the penalties, in other words these scare tactics.  A simple campaign designed to raise awareness in a humorous or unique way would go a long way with the public.  But they are too busy thinking of ways to throw first time offenders in jail, and how to get them to do more jail, and pay more fines.

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About the author: Matthew Leyba is a Seattle Bellevue DUI Lawyer in Western WA.  His practice focuses on representing those charged with DUI and other traffic related offenses.