SANTA BARBARA COUNTY'S AVOID THE 12 CAMPAIGN PLANS 17 DAY DUI HOLIDAY CRACKDOWN

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY- DECEMBER 14TH, 2009

56 SPECIAL ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS ARE SCHEDULED THROUGHOUT SANTA BARBARA COUNTY

 
Police officers, sheriff’s deputies and California Highway Patrol officers will swarm all over Santa Barbara County in a quest to arrest drunk drivers in an 17-day winter holiday DUI crackdown beginning Friday, Dec. 18.

Avoid the 12 has 56 separate extra enforcement efforts ready to catch impaired drivers over the holidays in Santa Barbara County. “It’s our most aggressive schedule so far,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Win Smith, campaign coordinator.

A sobriety checkpoint in Santa Maria on Friday night, with back-to-back checkpoints in Lompoc on Friday and Saturday nights, Dec. 18 and 19, kick off the crackdown.

On the enforcement calendar are five other sobriety checkpoints, 36 saturation patrols scheduled throughout the campaign, and eight days of California Highway Patrol freeway blitzes around Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Other events are two task force operations, one on Dec. 23 in Santa Maria and another on New Year’s Eve in Santa Barbara, along with a court sting and a DUI warrants operation. All police departments will emphasize DUI enforcement with officers on regular beats.

DUI arrests set a record during a similar period last year, when police pulled in 223 suspects, up by 10 from two years ago. Two died in DUI crashes, compared with one.

“Drunk driving hasn’t been accepted by society as a minor transgression for more than 30 years,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Win Smith, campaign coordinator. “It’s a serious, often violent crime, and everyone who wears a badge in this county treats it that way.

“If you drive sober, you’re a third of the way to being much safer on the road,” he commented. “The other two great habits are slowing down and buckling up.”

Avoid the 12, named best multi-jurisdictional campaign in the state by the California Law Enforcement Challenge, is funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

There are similar crackdowns in 41 of the state’s 58 counties, covering 98 per cent of California’s population, according to Christopher J. Murphy, director of the Office of Traffic Safety.