South Dakota’s Department of Public Safety has scheduled 17 sobriety checkpoints in 15 counties statewide in May.
The monthly checkpoints are designed to encourage sober driving. The checkpoints are funded by the South Dakota Office of Highway Safety and conducted by the South Dakota Highway Patrol with the help of local law enforcement.
Checkpoints are scheduled for Brookings, Meade, Walworth, Beadle, Yankton, Charles Mix, Pennington, Minnehaha, Jones, Lawrence, Codington, Stanley, Brown, Fall River, and Day counties.
In 2021, 56 people were killed, and 690 were injured in alcohol-involved crashes in South Dakota, which equates to 37.8% of total fatalities being alcohol-involved.
Officials remind drivers not to drink and drive regardless of whether a checkpoint is planned in their county. People drinking are urged to designate a sober driver or take an alternate form of commercial or public transportation.
Both the Office of Highway Safety and the Highway Patrol are agencies of the South Dakota Department of Public Safety.
