HELENA - Some 584 white wooden crosses decorate the Capitol lawn this week each one representing a Montanan killed in a drunk driving car crash between 2000 and 2004.

More than 175 of them belong to dead American Indians, said Craige Couture, chief of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Police Department. Couture was in Helena with other Montana law enforcement leaders Tuesday to formally kick off a national and state crackdown on drunk driving over Labor Day and to remind Montanans that beefed-up patrols will run across Indian Country, too.

"Six percent of Montana's population is Native American," Couture told a small crowd gathered under a banner reading "You Drink and Drive, You Lose" on the Capitol steps. "But nineteen percent of all traffic fatalities are Native American."

And 30 percent of all alcohol-related traffic fatalities involve an American Indian, he said.

"That is a tragedy," he said. "Every time we make a stop for (driving under the influence), we're saving someone's life."

Nationwide, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration teamed up with 12,000 law enforcement agencies from Aug. 19 until Sept. 5 to crack down on drunk driving including tribal police departments across Montana.

Historically, Labor Day weekend is among the deadliest on Montana roads, said Jim Lynch, head of the Montana Department of Transportation.

Statistics show up to 6 Montanans die in drunk driving accidents every Labor Day weekend.

It's fine to celebrate summer's last three-day weekend with alcohol, Lynch said. But it's not fine to drive afterwards. He suggested Montanans use designated drivers - real ones.

"The designated driver is not the person who's had the least amount to drink," Lynch said. It's the person who's actually sober.

The Montana Highway Patrol will have an extra 55 troopers on the roads over Labor Day weekend, said Col. Paul Grimstad, chief of the Montana Highway Patrol. The beefed-up patrols will be paid with part of an approximate $229,000 two-year grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Montana leads the nation in alcohol-related crash deaths per miles driven, statistics show.

Lynch, and Robert Weltzer, of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said they're working to turn that around.

"We've got to do something about that," Lynch said. "That's a lot of people dying for no reason."

Weltzer also stressed his earlier message that if you plan on drinking, find ways to not end up behind the wheel of a car, either by taking a taxi home, spending the night or using a sober, designated driver.

Couture said he knew the personal cost of drunk driving. He and two other Salish and Kootenai tribal officers were at Tuesday's kick-off.

Between the three of them, they were related to five of the dead Montanans represented by the white crosses.