DEERFIELD VALLEY- It’s nothing new. Almost every year someone steps forward to charge local police with being overzealous in their traffic or DWI enforcement, either focusing too much on locals or targeting visitors –depending on who’s making the charge.

This year the complaint came in an unsigned letter sent to the Wilmington and Dover town offices, the Mount Snow Valley Chamber of Commerce, and other locations. The claim: Police are targeting drivers of cars with out-of-state plates for harassment by ticketing them for infractions as minor as driving one mile per hour over the speed limit.

But police chiefs in both towns say the accusation just isn’t fair. Wilmington Police Chief Joe Szarejko says his department writes about 1,200 tickets per year. The number includes various ordinance violations, but he says the bulk is traffic tickets. Depending on when they’re written (tourist season, mud season, weekdays, weekends) he says, the mix between Vermont and out-of-state cars varies.

A random sample of about 50 tickets from this winter showed a mix of license plates, although out-of-state cars were the obvious majority. But none of the tickets – or warnings – were for driving one mile per hour over the speed limit, or even five miles over the speed limit. In fact, nearly all of the tickets were for excessive speeds, some approaching twice the village speed limit of 25 mph, and one for 53 mph in a 25-mph-zone. “You won’t find any ‘cheap’ tickets in there,” says Szarejko. “And we do use other measures. We put up the (radar controlled) speed boxes in areas where we have high incidences of speeding, but voluntary compliance doesn’t always work.”

Szarejko says his department does concentrate on traffic enforcement in the village, but with good reason. According to statistics compiled by the state, the stretch of road with the most accidents in the town is Route 9 East from the village center to its divergence with Route 100 South, and Route 100 North from the village to WW Building Supply. Pointing to a map with a cluster of blue dots converging on the village, Szarejko notes that each dot marks the location of an accident.

Dover Police Chief Robert Edwards says he estimates the ratio of Vermonters to out-of-staters ticketed in Dover is about 50-50 over the course of a year, and about 85% of the out-of-state tickets are written to second-home owners. But he says getting pulled over or ticketed has nothing to do with where you’re from. “The visitors and second-home owners accuse us of picking on them, and we’ve had locals ask why we don’t give the locals a break. I think you get that anywhere you have a permanent and temporary population.”

Edwards says his department wrote 109 tickets last year, and wrote even more warnings.

Local bar and restaurant owners have complained that their businesses have been adversely impacted by what they say is overzealous DWI enforcement, particularly in Wilmington village. They say some customers are afraid to have a drink with their meal and, as a result, don’t patronize downtown eateries. Szarejko says his department has fewer DWIs now than in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, when DWI enforcement was stepped up nationally. “We used to average between 50 and 100 DWIs per year,” Szarejko says. “The last few years it has been between 30 and 50; last year it was 51, this year (2009) it’s 31. I don’t consider 30 to 50 DWIs in the town of Wilmington to be a lot. I’m thankful that it’s down to 31.”

He attributes the drop in DWIs to changes in the way the public views drinking and driving. “Few people sympathize with the drunk driver,” he says. But Szarejko says DWI enforcement remains a public safety priority. “My officers are actively looking for drunk drivers, and I make no apologies for that. And we are more aware of DWI issues on weekends and weekend nights when, after 11 pm, one out of 10 drivers on the road is under the influence.”

Szarejko says the average blood-alcohol level recorded during a DWI arrest in Wilmington is 1.3% - nearly double the legal limit. “It’s not the person who had two drinks with dinner,” he says. “We wouldn’t advocate any drinking and driving, but, depending on your weight and other factors, most people can have two drinks over the course of a three-hour dinner without exceeding the legal limit.” In Vermont, the legal blood-alcohol limit is .08%.

And not all of the DWI arrests are the result of traffic stops. “We get roughly a third of our DWIs from accidents, when we get to the scene and determine that the accident was the result of a driver who was under the influence.

Under pressure from groups like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, states began changing their drunk driving laws and setting DWI enforcement as a top priority. “DWI was treated like a sport in the ‘70s and early ‘80s,” says Edwards. “And it seemed like just about every weekend, somewhere in the valley, there was a serious alcohol-related accident with injuries.”

Since then, Edwards notes, the number of serious injuries and deaths due to alcohol-related crashes in the valley has dropped to near zero. “In the 1990s, the average blood-alcohol level was about 2.3%. Now, I think it’s about 1.5%. Enforcement changed that.”

Both Szarejko and Edwards say ticket revenue is not a factor in their enforcement. Although department budgets do have a line item for revenue from enforcement, neither chief says their departments are under any pressure to self-fund. “Never, never,” says Edwards. “I have never, and will never, send anyone out to write tickets for the purpose of revenue,” he says. “We’re not a revenue-driven department.”

Szarejko notes that the departments don’t get revenue from many of their enforcement actions. “We don’t get money for ticketing someone for no inspection, driving with a suspended license or DWI,” he says. “We have no incentive other than to get these people off the road before someone gets hurt. It’s hard to measure success. How do you know if you saved someone’s life?”