AVOID The 12 Targets Highway 154 Over Memorial Day Weekend

Santa Barbara - MAY 24th, 2010

Narrow, winding, scenic Highway 154 between the Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Barbara is the focus of an Avoid the 12 DUI task force over the long Memorial Day weekend.

The four-day crackdown starts at the first minute of Friday, May 28, and continues until midnight Monday, May 31, said Deputy Win Smith of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Dept., campaign coordinator.

Police in the county arrested 51 on suspicion of DUI during the same period last year. No one died in DUI-related crashes.

Three people died on the stretch of Highway 154 between Los Olivos and Santa Barbara just last month, said Sgt. Tom Mullen of the Buellton office of the California Highway Patrol.

Nancy Jean Gonnoud, a 58-year-old resident of Santa Barbara, was killed on April 22. Gregory Soloman, 45, of Malibu died April 28, and Manuel Garcia of Santa Ynez, age 49, died April 29, Mullen reported. Asuncion Garcia, his wife, was seriously injured.

The CHP’s Santa Barbara, Buellton and Santa Maria offices will assign all available officers to road duty for all four days. Highway Patrol squads throughout the state will follow the same enforcement schedule.

Buellton CHP officers will staff a sobriety checkpoint set for Friday night in the Santa Ynez Valley. It is funded by a “Safe and Sober” grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety. Lompoc police will hold another sobriety checkpoint the same night.

Joining Santa Barbara County’s Avoid the 12 interagency DUI campaign are 41 similar countywide crackdowns throughout California that involve more than 540 law enforcement agencies and cover 98 percent of the state’s population.

The California OTS supports them all through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They are the largest funded statewide DUI crackdowns in the United States, according to NHTSA.

The checkpoint was funded by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  Report Drunk Drivers – Call 9-1-1!