HARDIN — A crackdown on impaired driving is sweeping Big Horn County, where Hardin’s police chief says his department is getting increasingly aggressive about DUI enforcement.
The effort has already doubled drunken-driving arrests in just one year.
Hardin police have arrested nearly two dozen suspected impaired drivers in the past two months, and with the holiday season underway, officers such as Edward Stafford say they are hitting the streets harder than ever to keep roads safe.
“I think he blew a .249.” Stafford said, recalling a recent drunk driving arrest. “So, 24 percent of his blood was alcohol.”
Stafford said he is focused on finding impaired drivers.
“The other day we had a DUI in front of the school, they just ran the stop sign,” he said.
Police say the calls they respond to are often alarming, including drunken drivers with children in the car and a semi driver preparing to take his loaded rig onto the highway before officers stopped him.
“Of course, he’d been drinking and was in control of the vehicle,” Stafford said.
Police Chief Paul George said incidents like that underscore what’s at stake.
“That is a massive bullet just driving down the road, and it can end just so many lives,” he said. “We have an alcohol problem in our community.”
George formed a dedicated aggressive driving and DUI enforcement unit to tackle the problem.
He said the department’s year-to-year DUI numbers show the impact of that effort. “We had 28 DUI arrests in 2024 and currently right now we are at 42 for the year,” he said.
The intensified enforcement also pushes officers to be more thorough during traffic stops. Stafford said, “I think the highest I think I have seen is a point 66.”
George said the unit’s work has extended beyond DUI enforcement.
“We’ve got a lot of wanted people off the streets, a lot of alcohol drugs off the streets, a lot of people behind bars who can no longer commit crimes,” he said.
He said, crime has dropped significantly since arriving at the helm of the department, crediting tools such as license-plate readers for helping eliminate stolen-vehicle thefts and reducing violent crime by 40 percent.
“Officers also now patrol at night with cruise lights, steady-burning blue lights, to increase visibility,” he said. “It lets people know that we are riding around.”
Around 3 percent of drivers are impaired at any given time, a number that climbs on weekends. In a town of about 5,000 people, George said the department’s message is simple.
“We are not forcing you to drive drunk. We are just catching you doing it,” he said.
For George, the goal is nothing short of crushing crime.
“There’s a lot more out there. We really have got to get these people off the road,” he said.
