AVOID THE 12 WINTER HOLIDAY CRACKDOWN

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY- December 4th, 2008

Ten sobriety checkpoints, California Highway Patrol freeway blitzes and 28 saturation DUI patrols in seven cities in Santa Barbara County are set for the three-week Avoid the 12 Winter holiday crackdown, which begins at the first minute of Friday, Dec. 12 and ends at midnight on New Year’s Day.

Police, sheriff’s deputies and CHP officers made 213 DUI arrests during last year’s winter campaign, said Avoid the 12 coordinator Deputy Win Smith of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office. “This was a huge jump of 28 percent from 165 in our first year, which was 2006. The best news is that we saw a gratifying 35 percent drop in alcohol-related injury crashes from 25 in 2006 to 14 last year. That’s exactly the way we want to see the arrows going.” Smith himself has been reassigned to the night shift in Buellton during the entire three-week period. He is the traffic deputy for the town. Opening day, Dec. 12, will see a checkpoint by the Buellton Area Command of the CHP, said Sgt. Tom Mullen, who will not announce the location but comments that the day-to-night event, set for 2:30 to 10:30 p.m. is aimed at arresting wine tasters who have not had the wisdom to arrange for a designated, sober driver ahead of time. Deputies in Goleta will hold a checkpoint the same night.

Two checkpoints are set for Sunday, Dec. 14, one in Lompoc between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. another in Santa Maria from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Those locations will be announced shortly before the event begins. Santa Maria police will run two more checkpoints, one Dec. 19 and the other Dec. 21 with another by the Lompoc police on Dec. 27. Avoid the 12 plans multi-jurisdictional checkpoints in Guadalupe on Saturday, Dec. 20; another in Solvang on Friday, Dec. 26 and the last in Santa Barbara on Saturday, Dec. 27. The checkpoints will be in operation from either 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. and will end around 2 a.m. CHP offices in Santa Barbara, Buellton and Santa Maria will assign nearly all of their available officers to the road from Christmas Eve to the Saturday after Christmas as well as on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. The campaign will sponsor saturation patrols in Carpinteria, Guadalupe, Goleta, Lompoc, UCSB/Isla Vista, Santa Ynez Valley and in the State Parks.

Officers are hoping that the driving public will pull out their cell phones and call 911 when they see an obviously dangerous driver. “This is a public-police partnership that can be quite productive,” Smith said. “You’ll need to be ready to tell the dispatcher where you are and which way you’re driving, along with a description of the other car and its license plate, if possible. You can remain anonymous.” Smith offers some things to look for, including cars driving much too slow or much too fast, those that brake for no reason or screech to a halt at a stop sign or stop light, cars driving with their headlights off at night, those that make wide turns and drivers who weave within the lanes or from lane to lane.

There are similar countywide Avoid campaigns in 41 of California’s counties, covering 98 percent of the state, each named for the number of law enforcement agencies in that county and funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last year marked the first time in 10 years that alcohol-related fatalities declined in California, according to OTS Director Christopher J. Murphy, falling off by 6.7 percent from 2006 and 2007. Murphy credits the growth of the countywide Avoid campaigns for contributing to the reduction.