A national end-of-summer crackdown on drunken driving that began last Friday is in full swing throughout the Bay Area with DUI arrests up in some counties in the first week of the operation, law enforcement officials said.
The Summer/Labor Day National Anti-drunken driving campaign is headed by county AVOID programs, including Santa Clara County's "Avoid the 13." It coordinated through the state's Office of Traffic Safety is upping law enforcement presence for 17 days, which began Aug. 17.
In Santa Clara County, the "Avoid the 13" campaign has netted in
136 arrests for DUIs, or "driving under the influence," thus far.
A DUI checkpoint was scheduled in Morgan Hill Friday, followed by
a series of checkpoints throughout the county. DUI checkpoints will be conducted on Saturday September 1, in the cities of San Jose and Milpitas. Extra DUI "saturation patrols" will be deployed in the cities of: Campbell, Milpitas, Los Altos, Mountain View, Los Gatos, PaloAlto, San Jose, Santa Clara, Gilroy, Sunnyvale, Morgan Hill, Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Altos Hills, and the unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County.
The crackdown targets drivers in August, said California Office of Traffic Safety spokesman Chris Cochran, because "it's a high DUI month" and leads into the Labor Day holiday at the start of September.
Cochran said other enforcement periods more predictably connect to higher drunken driving arrest rates, such as New Year's or the Fourth of July. Statistically, he said, some of the year's most deadly DUI days tend to fall in August each year.
Solano and San Mateo counties' anti-DUI campaigns saw a decrease in drunken driving arrests so far in the operation compared to arrests from 2011.
In Solano County, 12 drivers were arrested compared to 20 in 2011. Also in San Mateo County, DUI arrests were down in the first six days of the campaign. Last year 82 arrests were made in that time period, while this year only 59 arrests were reported.
Extra patrols will be dispatched to South San Francisco and Burlingame Friday as part of the operation.
In Alameda County, a third sobriety checkpoint of the summer operation will be held Friday night at 8 p.m. at an undisclosed location,
campaign officials said.
Agency
Aug. 17
Aug. 18
Aug. 19
Aug. 20
Aug. 21
Aug. 22
Aug. 23
Campbell PD
0
1
1
0
NR
NR
CHP - Gilroy
4
5
9
1
NR
NR
0
CHP – San Jose
6
7
12
1
3
6
5
Gilroy PD
2
1
2
0
1
0
1
Los Altos PD
0
0
0
1
0
0
Los Gatos PD
2
0
0
1
Milpitas PD
0
0
1
1
1
1
0
Morgan Hill PD
0
2
1
1
0
1
0
Mountain View PD
2
2
3
0
1
1
Palo Alto PD
2
0
0
0
0
0
San Jose PD
9
10
7
2
1
2
Santa Clara PD
2
0
0
1
NR
NR
Sunnyvale PD
0
1
1
1
0
1
4
San Jose State U.
NR
NR
NR
NR
NR
NR
NR
Cumulative
49
90
103
113
124
136
Daily Total
29
20
41
13
10
11
12
— Bay City News wire contributed to this report
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