Sobriety Checkpoints Coming Up this Weekend As Avoid the 12 Continues Countywide DUI Crackdown

12/20/2007

The second weekend of the countywide Avoid the 12 anti-DUI campaign will see Friday sobriety checkpoints in Goleta and Lompoc, each starting around 7 p.m. and ending well after midnight.

About 16 percent more DUI suspects are in handcuffs so far in the 19-day holiday crackdown that began Dec. 14 than there were at the same time last year, said Sheriff’s Deputy Win Smith, campaign coordinator. Totals stand at 59 compared with 51.

DUI suspects have killed no one in the county since the campaign began, although three alcohol-related injury crashes are on the books.

California Highway Patrol officers start their Christmas weekend maximum enforcement period on Friday, Dec. 21, ending on Christmas Day, Nearly all available officers will be assigned to freeway patrol, said Capt. Jeff Sgobba of the Santa Barbara office. Buellton CHP officers will run DUI saturation patrols all weekend on top of that.

All 40 similar California countywide crackdowns in California are funded by the Calfiornia Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.