Santa Barbara - August 14th, 2008
AVOID THE 12 PLANS TWO CHECKPOINTS, CHP FREEWAY SATURATION, DUI TASK FORCE IN CARPINTERIA FOR LABOR DAY WEEKEND DUI CRACKDOWN
A Friday night, Aug. 29, sobriety checkpoint in Goleta another on Sunday, Aug. 31, in Lompoc and a multi-jurisdictional DUI task force focused on Carpinteria are set by Avoid the 12, Santa Barbara County’s cooperative DUI crackdown. The four-day blitz over the Labor Day weekend starts at the first minute of Friday and ends at midnight Monday, Sept. 1.
CHP cruisers will flood the freeways all weekend as captains of Santa Barbara, Buellton and Santa Maria area commands in the county assign nearly all their officers to road duty. Special DUI patrols are set, while all police supervisors will emphasize DUI enforcement with officers on regular beats.
The crackdown is part of a nationwide summer DUI prevention effort sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that focuses on combining high-visibility enforcement with heightened public awareness.
“Designating a sober driver, buckling your seatbelt and turning in DUI drivers by dialing 911 on your cell phone are the best weapons people can use in the war against DUI,” said County Sheriff’s Deputy Win Smith, Avoid the 12 coordinator. Director Christopher J. Murphy of California Office of Traffic Safety, Avoid the 12’s funding agency, called 2007 “nothing short of a monumental year for traffic safety in California,” citing the drop of the number of people injured on the state’s roadways to the lowest level in 25 years. After the third annual Click it or Ticket campaign, Murphy saw the state’s seatbelt use increase to 94.6 percent, meaning that more than a million more people are buckling up. There are 41 Avoid campaigns in California, each named for the number of law enforcement agencies in each county. They involve more than 450 law enforcement agencies and hit the roads again for a 22-day winter holiday crackdown starting Dec. 14 and ending at midnight on January 2, 2009.
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