The winter holiday anti-DUI crackdown has resulted in a significant number of DUI arrests from local routine traffic enforcement and special Avoid the 12 DUI deployments since the winter enforcement period started on Dec. 14.
From 12:01 a.m. Dec. 14 through 12:01 a.m. Friday, officers representing 12 county law enforcement agencies arrested 92 individuals for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
In 2011, 117 DUI arrests occurred during the same time period. The inclement weather may be the cause of the reduction in the DUI arrests. (Note: These numbers are only provisional with some agencies yet to report.)
All regularly scheduled traffic and patrol officers will focus efforts at stopping and arresting DUI drivers during their normal shifts.
A DUI task force operation will be held Friday night in Santa Maria. Officers from the Guadalupe, Lompoc and Santa Maria police departments as well as deputies from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department will be out on patrol looking for impaired drivers.
On Friday and Saturday, the Santa Barbara Police Department will be having sobriety checkpoints at undisclosed locations in Santa Barbara. There will also be several local roving DUI patrols in several cities within Santa Barbara County.
These operations are all part of this regionwide crackdown during the 19-day Winter Holiday Campaign, which will conclude on Tuesday.
Police, sheriffs and the CHP encourage all motorists to help make your community safer: Report drunk drivers — call 9-1-1. Funding for this program is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. DUI arrest data collection will continue through New Year’s weekend, midnight Sunday.
AVOID the 12 is named for the 12 law enforcement agencies within Santa Barbara County that work together to combat impaired driving.
— Kevin Huddle is a sergeant for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.