Morris Twp. Officer Honored for DWI Arrests

Morris Township Police Officer Steven Crump was recognized Thursday for his efforts to keep drunk drivers off the roadways.

In 2011, the arrested 110 drivers suspected of driving while intoxicated, police said. With 23 DWI arrests, Crump earned the MADD award for the second consecutive year.

The event recognized more than 400 state and local law enforcement officers and was hosted by the NJ Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) at the Middlesex County College.

The organizer of the event, Maria Esteves, lost her 8-year old daughter Rosemary to a drunk driver in 1991. She emphasized that every impaired driver stopped is a crash, injury or fatality prevented. Impaired driving is one of the most often committed crimes, randomly killing someone in America every 30 minutes and nearly 50 people a day.

Using the most current NHTSA figures New Jersey had 556 traffic fatalities in 2010, 153 of those fatalities involved an impaired driver, police said. In New Jersey, a person is guilty of drunk driving if he/she operates a motor vehicle with a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of 0.08 percent or greater.

The Morris Township Police Department advise motorists to be aware of impaired drivers.