If you're planning to share some Irish cheer during the week of St. Patrick's Day, you might want to think twice before getting behind the wheel.

Ross Deck, DUI sobriety checkpoint coordinator for Lancaster County, said Southcentral PA Regional DUI Task Force and State police will conduct sobriety checkpoints at undisclosed locations in Lancaster County on Tuesday, the night of St. Patrick's Day.

"St. Patrick's Day has always been a big drinking day," Deck said Friday. "It is also a big day for drinking-driver crashes — it's always on the radar screen."

Deck said about 25 police officers from 12 municipalities will operate the checkpoints sometime between 8 p.m. on the holiday and 6 a.m. on Wednesday.

Members of the task force will also focus their activity throughout the county tonight through March 22.

From 2002 through 2006, Lancaster County police agencies reported 19 serious DUI crashes on St. Patrick's Day, Deck said.

Two of those crashes involved fatalities — one in Pequea Township and one in East Drumore Township. The St. Patrick's Day crashes also resulted in 15 individuals being injured, several seriously, Deck said.

Deck, a retired Lancaster city police officer who heads the grant program at the Lancaster County District Attorney's office, said he helped get funding for the Lancaster County sobriety checkpoint program in 1995.

"It's a federal grant that's funneled through PennDOT and then goes to projects throughout the state to run sobriety checkpoints, roving patrols and finance undercover operations related to underage drinking."

He said PennDOT requests when grantees conduct some type of DUI enforcement operations. Besides St. Patrick's Day, DUI task force crack-downs occur on Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Halloween and around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Deck said sobriety checkpoints, which are based on statistical data, consist of the police setting up a roadblock in a designated area and stopping each vehicle that drives through the location.

Drivers who appear to be driving under the influence of alcohol and/or controlled substances will be tested. Roving patrols watch for motorists who appear to be driving under the influence.

E-mail: pburns@lnpnews.com