By WHITNEE ICE
St. Joseph Post
Underage drinking and driving is on the rise.
Statistics from the Missouri Department of Transportation shows teen fatalities on the roadways are up 63% over this time last year.
Troop H Public Information Officer Jake Angle says the Highway Patrol's mission hasn’t changed and won’t change.
“We’re not going to stop,” Angle tells St. Joseph Post. “That’s our mission day in and day out. It’s to make the highways as safe as possible and underage drinking obviously falls under that purview as well.”
Missouri has a Zero Tolerance Law. Anyone under 21 years of age will have their license suspended if they are caught driving with even a trace of alcohol in their system.
Angle says the Zero Tolerance Law specifically targets people under the drinking age.
“If you’re caught driving, operating a motor vehicle with any trace of alcohol in your system, it’s an administrative action through the department of Revenue and you’ll lose your driver's license,” says Angle.
He says the law is clear, and Angle encourages all drivers to follow the laws in place.
“If you’re out there on the road way and I don’t care if you're underage, or if you're of age, if you're impaired and you get behind the wheel, there is a heavy price to pay and we’re put there. Our enforcement’s not going to change,” says Angle. “We will find you. We will arrest you and you will go to jail.”