It’s summer, and while you’re enjoying the balmy weather and fun that summer brings, you might want to keep something in mind. Police are in the midst of something they like to call a DUI crackdown, and they’re out in full force looking for summer drunk drivers.

Here are just a few of the police patrols taking part in the summer DUI crackdown.

Colorado

From Aspen to Boulder City, the Colorado Department of Transportation, Colorado State Patrol, and the Colorado police are working together for a DUI crackdown they’re calling the “Heat is on” summer blitz. Because the summer months have the highest number of drunk drivers and drunk driving crashes, Colorado police are setting up extra checkpoints and have extra police officers out there for saturation patrols, and they’re ready and waiting for summer drunk drivers.

Texas

In Texas police consider May 25th to be the beginning of what’s known as the 100 deadliest days of summer. Because of the number of drivers on the road and in the water, there’s an increase in drunk driving crashes both on and off the water. To put the brakes on, Texas police are putting on more “No Refusal checkpoints” and saturating the roads with patrols.

Florida

In Florida every day is summer, so the DUI crackdowns don’t just happen in the June, July, and August: they happen all year long. In some counties police will form patrol groups that call themselves  DUI Wolf Pack, and they hit the road as a group in the early evening and stay out until 5 am, popping up in surprise locations to nab the most amount of drunk drivers they can.

These are just three of the summer DUI crackdowns you’ll see out on the roads in the USA, and just because your state isn’t listed doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. Be aware this summer, stay safe, and if you drink, don’t drive.

Twitter is great for a lot of different things. You can find out up to the minute news, check out your favorite celebrity/author/rock star’s thoughts on any given day, and even win prizes. Although it’s great to get that kind of information, Twitter also has downsides.

Sometimes people will tweet out locations for drunk driving checkpoints, while others will use the platform as a way to share their drunk driving escapades. But before you begin to feel as though there are a lot of people with questionable ethics using Twitter, you should take a look at these tweets about drunk driving. Maybe they appeared on your feed, and if they did, made you think twice about drunk driving.

Sometimes the path the darkside is pretty clear

Sometimes law enforcement has to get really creative to get people’s attention when it comes to drunk driving, and that’s exactly what Vermont police did with a local billboard. Capitalizing on the release of the Star Wars movie was a nice tie in and a great way to get attention, especially when it’s shared on Twitter.

Not your favorite bartender

Maybe you’ve got a favourite bartender at your local pub. This tweet is a great reminder that if you drink and drive, you don’t get a choice of bartenders.

Spreading the message to not drink and drive

A picture is worth a thousand words, so this shot of students trying on Fatal Vision goggles is a great share on Twitter. It just goes to show that you essentially lose that vital brain/body connection when you’re drunk.

A simple message to stop drunk driving

Sent out the day before New Year’s Eve, there’s never been a more simple, effective message to stop drunk driving than this tweet.

On any given day, Twitter has thousands of anti-drunk driving messages. If you ever feel like you need an instant reminder to not drink and drive, Twitter should be the first place you look.

You’d think that a drunk driving checkpoint would work best if it had the element of surprise behind it. After all, if someone is driving drunk and they come across a checkpoint they didn’t know about, they have a much larger chance of being caught. If they knew the checkpoint would be on their route, they could just choose a different road and bypass it completely.

That’s why when people read about the location of an upcoming checkpoint in the newspaper or somewhere online, they are understandably confused as to why the police would publicize it. Don’t they want to catch drunk drivers? Why would they let the public know exactly where they’ll be?

Turns out, by publicizing checkpoints your local police department is just following the letter of the law. Way back in 1990, a legal challenge came up in Michigan and the attempt was made to deem checkpoints unconstitutional. The United States Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that they were constitutional, but they mandated that checkpoints must be publicized ahead of time. If the police don’t publicize a checkpoint it can be considered a detention without reasonable suspicion, and that violates your Fourth Amendment rights.

Although the ruling in Michigan allowed checkpoints to continue, some states have bypassed that ruling and decided that these roadside checks violate their own state constitution. 10 states in all have bans on sobriety checkpoints.

Fortunately for police, the publication of checkpoints hasn’t affected their ability to arrest drunk drivers. They still manage to net people under the influence each and every time they set up a checkpoint on the side of the road, even if they publicize them all over the place first. The good part of checkpoint publication? It just might make a driver think twice before drinking and driving, and that means safer roads for everyone this holiday.