Holiday season means DUI checkpoints throughout Sonoma County

[Barry]

Holiday season means DUI checkpoints throughout Sonoma County

By MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 2:11 p.m.

Sonoma County authorities are kicking off their seasonal campaign against drunken driving this weekend with a multi-pronged effort aimed at keeping impaired drivers off the road.

With schools letting out and a week to go before Christmas, the holiday season is kicking into high gear and, with it, the likelihood that folks will be out imbibing alcohol-laced refreshments, authorities say.

“What it comes down to is the holidays give people more excuses to go out and drink,” CHP Officer Jon Sloat said. “There's more parties, more after-work events, out-of-town family, out-of-town friends. There's just more reasons for people to go out and start drinking than normal - in a non-holiday period.”

Officers from the county's 13 law enforcement agencies collaborating under the Avoid the 13 banner made 62 drunken driving arrests over the comparable weekend last year - a third of the 176 DUI arrests resulting from the 17-day, 2008 Avoid the 13 season.
State traffic safety officials say increased use of checkpoints since 2006 correlates with a decline in alcohol-related fatalities, and this year are planning more than 250 over the next 2 1/2 weeks.
But authorities hope merely spreading the word diminishes the number of people getting behind the wheel after drinking alcohol.
“A major component of these checkpoints is to increase awareness of the dangers of impaired driving and to encourage sober designated drivers,” Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Doug Schlief said in a press release.

This year's campaign launches Friday night with a DUI checkpoint planned for an undisclosed location in Windsor, from about 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday, said Petaluma Police Sgt. Ken Savano, whose department oversees the countywide Avoid the 13 program.
Santa Rosa Police have scheduled a similar checkpoint from 7 p.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday, according to police Sgt. Doug Schlief.

In the meantime, Savano said, representatives from various agencies will spend Saturday afternoon and night patrolling for drunken drivers and checking up on habitual offenders or those on parole or probation for DUI offenses to ensure they're complying with court-ordered conditions.

Police checkpoints additionally are scheduled in Petaluma on Saturday, Dec. 26, and in Santa Rosa on Saturday, Jan. 2.
The CHP, meanwhile, has maximum enforcement periods planned, as well, in which patrols will be beefed up to ensure as much oversight and contact as possible with the motoring public.

The maximum enforcement periods will run from 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 24, through midnight Dec. 27, and from 6 p.m. Dec. 31 through midnight, Jan. 3.
“You could call it a zero-tolerance period,” Sloat said. “They'll make stops for any observed violations with the thought that the more people we find with violations and the more we contact, the more DUI violations we will find.”

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[justme]

Thanks Barry and everyone have a safe and Happy Holiday!