Sobriety

Claiming past success in reducing Labor Day deaths, a local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) hopes that at least 100 people will pledge to drive soberly Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon in Hainesport, MADD will enlist the support of politicians, police chiefs, sports heroes and members of the public. They will sign a pledge and seek signatures from others to a commit to sobriety behind the wheel. At 1 p.m., short speeches and a ceremonial petition-signing will kick off the campaign.

When Towamencin police recently proposed a sobriety checkpoint program for North Penn, Hatfield Lt. Eric Schmitz was glad to offer his department's support. Last year, Hatfield police arrested 118 people for drunken driving - more than any other department in the North Penn area. Hatfield police have arrested 79 people for driving under the influence of alcohol this year. Schmitz, Hatfield's acting police chief, estimates that the year-end total will be about 110. Schmitz said he does not expect the Towamencin-led plan to eliminate the problem or reduce his arrest numbers significantly.

DEAR ABBY: "Robert" and I met four years ago and fell head-over-heels in love. At the time, he was two years clean and sober and attending meetings. Due to his hectic work schedule, he stopped attending the meetings. Robert prided himself on his sobriety, so imagine my shock when I found an empty liquor bottle buried in the trash and three more under the bed. I I didn't know what to say to him or how to react. I told Robert I knew he was drinking again. He said he didn't want to discuss it, so I didn't push.

If you thought the fire on Interstate 95 in March caused you driving problems, try driving that road this weekend with too much firewater under your belt. While the superhighway's lanes run right past one of the city's busiest bar sections along Delaware Avenue, they also run past the city's prison complex. Too much time in one area might land you in the other. That's because Philadelphia Highway Patrol officers will be setting up another in a series of field sobriety checkpoints to send those who've overdone it at the ale house straight to the jail house.

Louise is telling a story about a fight with her mother over her recent, very short, punk-looking haircut. "I said to her, 'This is who I am and this is what I do.' I told her, 'I came here to visit. Do you want me to leave?' I never said that to her before. . . . With all of it came the realization: I'm not nuts. I'm not mentally ill. I'm not anything people have told me I am for years and years. I'm just a little left of right. " The other women in the group nod in support and offer Louise words of encouragement.

Downingtown's 28-year-old mayor, who is facing drunken-driving charges, applied Monday for a prison alternative program. Joshua A. Maxwell waived his preliminary hearing Thursday on charges that include driving under the influence and careless driving. He is seeking admittance to the county's Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program, his attorney, Dawson R. Muth, said Monday. Maxwell did not return a telephone call seeking comment. Muth said he believes Maxwell will meet the requirements for the program.

Unless otherwise attributed, the following reports are based on statements of local police. DUI arrests The following people were arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol. State law prohibits driving with a blood-alcohol content of 0.10 percent or greater. Refusal to submit to alcohol testing results in a one-year suspension of driving privileges. Joseph Speero, 27, of the 3100 block of Cottman Avenue, Philadelphia, was charged Nov. 22 after Bensalem Township police pulled him over for not stopping at a stop sign at Windsor and Crafton Drives.

Downingtown's 28-year-old mayor was accepted Tuesday into a prison-alternative program for a drunken-driving offense. Chester County First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Carmody said Joshua A. Maxwell, a first-time, nonviolent offender, easily qualified for the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program. Under ARD, a state program whose guidelines vary from county to county, participants are promised a clean slate if they complete requirements such as community service and treatment programs.

Months after dozens of Camden's homeless were dramatically transported from their tent city and promised housing for a year, some have moved into a new encampment blocks from where they began. Their presence in another outdoor settlement in Camden reflects the mixed results of a pastor's innovative, highly publicized effort to provide a better life for 54 street people, whom he escorted by motor coach to a Mount Laurel hotel in May. It also shows the complications involved in solving the homeless problem in New Jersey's poorest city.

A teenaged boy returns home late on a Friday and finds his parents still up and sitting in the living room. Son: Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. W'assup? (Stony silence from mom and dad.) Son: Is something wrong? Mom: Son, we'd like to put this little cotton swab in your mouth. Son: Huh?? Soon, homes throughout the region, even the nation, may be reenacting similar scenes as parents jump at the chance to use a sobriety test that gauges blood-alcohol levels by analyzing saliva swabs.

DEAR ABBY: "Robert" and I met four years ago and fell head-over-heels in love. At the time, he was two years clean and sober and attending meetings. Due to his hectic work schedule, he stopped attending the meetings. Robert prided himself on his sobriety, so imagine my shock when I found an empty liquor bottle buried in the trash and three more under the bed. I I didn't know what to say to him or how to react. I told Robert I knew he was drinking again. He said he didn't want to discuss it, so I didn't push.

Downingtown's 28-year-old mayor was accepted Tuesday into a prison-alternative program for a drunken-driving offense. Chester County First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Carmody said Joshua A. Maxwell, a first-time, nonviolent offender, easily qualified for the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program. Under ARD, a state program whose guidelines vary from county to county, participants are promised a clean slate if they complete requirements such as community service and treatment programs.

Downingtown's 28-year-old mayor, who is facing drunken-driving charges, applied Monday for a prison alternative program. Joshua A. Maxwell waived his preliminary hearing Thursday on charges that include driving under the influence and careless driving. He is seeking admittance to the county's Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program, his attorney, Dawson R. Muth, said Monday. Maxwell did not return a telephone call seeking comment. Muth said he believes Maxwell will meet the requirements for the program.

Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board is under siege but fighting back. We know because it's doubling the size of its fearsome robot army. Facing threats of privatization in Harrisburg, the booze ministry recently announced plans to deploy 24 more of its wine-selling machines to serve the state's Walmarts. These Breathalyzer-equipped Rube Goldberg devices are an apt symbol of the LCB itself: a complicated, expensive, and largely unsuccessful attempt to reinvent the liquor store. But to hear LCB Chairman Patrick J. "P.J.

Notre Dame star wide receiver Michael Floyd was pulled over by campus police after he ran a stop sign and was charged with drunken driving after failing three field-sobriety tests and a breathalyzer test indicated he had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal driving limit, court records show. Floyd was driving a white Cadillac at 3:18 a.m. Sunday when he ran a stop sign about a block from the school's main entrance, according to a probable-cause affidavit from St. Joseph County deputy prosecutor Chris Daniels filed yesterday.

An emergency medical services supervisor in Camden County was arrested Thursday night after he allegedly showed up intoxicated at a fire scene, police said. Thomas Eden Sr., 48, chief of the Gloucester Township EMS Alliance, responded to a domestic violence incident in which a man barricaded himself inside a house in the 2800 block of Erial Road in the township and set it on fire, police said. Police responded at 8:26 p.m. and the EMS Alliance also was called to the scene. After Eden arrived in his marked EMS command vehicle, other emergency responders told police that he appeared to be intoxicated, police said.

Months after dozens of Camden's homeless were dramatically transported from their tent city and promised housing for a year, some have moved into a new encampment blocks from where they began. Their presence in another outdoor settlement in Camden reflects the mixed results of a pastor's innovative, highly publicized effort to provide a better life for 54 street people, whom he escorted by motor coach to a Mount Laurel hotel in May. It also shows the complications involved in solving the homeless problem in New Jersey's poorest city.

A Pennsylvania State Police official who supervised sobriety checkpoints on area highways and worked as an expert in crash reconstruction has been charged with drunken driving. Cpl. John Quigg, 47, of Wyndmoor, has been placed on administrative duty at the Philadelphia Barracks on Belmont Avenue, where he works, pending adjudication of the charges and the results of an internal investigation, state police said. That means he'll report to work but perform only paperwork, said Trooper Danea Durham, spokeswoman for the barracks.

More than a dozen years ago, a Superior Court judge in Gloucester County sparked a national debate over racial profiling when he ruled state police troopers were unfairly targeting black and Hispanic motorists on the New Jersey Turnpike. That finding, by Judge Robert E. Francis, eventually led to the dismissal of charges against nearly 300 motorists who were improperly stopped and searched around the state. The U.S. Department of Justice also began monitoring traffic stops in the state, a role that is continuing.