Cops to beef-up enforcement over Memorial Day weekend
The Avoid the 6 DUI Campaign will be deploying officers this holiday weekend at DUI/Drivers License Checkpoints and DUI Saturation Patrols throughout El Dorado County to arrest impaired drivers who still don’t get the message.
The Memorial Day weekend is witness to the kick off of summertime recreation and holiday travel, along with many college and high school graduations seeing thousands celebrate their accomplishments. The next 100 days will also see a rise in deaths and injuries as far too many individuals get behind the wheel impaired.
The enforcement campaign begins Friday night with DUI/Driver’s License checkpoint in Placerville with special DUI Saturation Patrols deploying in South Lake Tahoe.
More local DUI Saturation Patrols will be out on Saturday and Sunday nights in Placerville and South Lake Tahoe. The California Highway Patrol is deploying all available officers Memorial Day weekend onto freeways and county roads in their jurisdiction.
Law enforcement regionwide is asking for support this holiday weekend and all summer:
• Be responsible when hosting a party; don’t allow friends and family to drink to excess
• Always promote a designated sober driver
• Report drunken drivers, call 911
Funding for the Avoid Campaign is through a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
AB 1389 (Allen)
Vehicles: sobriety checkpoints: impoundment.
Existing law authorizes a city or a county to establish a sobriety checkpoint program in highways under its jurisdiction to check for violations of driving-under-the-influence (DUI) offenses and authorizes the board of supervisors of a county to establish, by ordinance, a combined vehicle inspection and sobriety checkpoint program to check for violations of motor vehicle exhaust standards in addition to DUI offenses.
Existing law authorizes a peace officer, whenever the peace officer determines, among other things, that a person was driving a vehicle (1) without ever having been issued a drivers license, to immediately arrest that person and cause the removal and seizure of his or her vehicle for an impoundment period of 30 days, or (2) if the person is currently without a valid drivers license, to remove the vehicle for a shorter period of time upon issuance of a notice to appear if the registered owner or the registered owners agent presents a currently valid drivers license and proof of current vehicle registration, or upon order of the court.
This bill would authorize the Department of the California Highway Patrol, and a city, county, or city and county, by ordinance or resolution, to establish a sobriety checkpoint program on highways within their respective jurisdictions to identify drivers who are in violation of specified DUI offenses. The bill would require that the program be conducted by the local governmental agency or department with the primary responsibility for traffic law enforcement.
The bill would require that the selection of the site of the checkpoint and the procedures for a checkpoint operation be determined by supervisory law enforcement personnel and that the law enforcement agency employ a neutral methodology for determining which vehicles to stop at the checkpoint or that all vehicles that drive through the checkpoint be stopped. The bill would also require a law enforcement agency to ensure that there are proper lighting, warning signs and signals, and clearly identifiable official vehicles, and uniformed personnel to minimize the risk to motorists and their passengers and to only operate a checkpoint when traffic volume allows for the safe operation of the program.
The bill would, notwithstanding other provisions of law, require that a peace officer or any other authorized person not cause the impoundment of a vehicle at a sobriety checkpoint, established pursuant to these provisions or any other law, unless at least one of a number of specified conditions applies. The bill would delete the county board of supervisors authority to conduct a combined vehicle inspection and sobriety checkpoint program. The bill would require a law enforcement agency that conducts a sobriety checkpoint program to provide advance notice of the checkpoints general location to the public within a minimum of 48 hours of the checkpoint operation.
This bill would require that each motorist stopped be detained so that the law enforcement officer may briefly question the driver and look for specified signs of intoxication.
And I thought checkpoints were only used in communist and muslim countries. Does this seem wrong to anyonee else? What happened to probable cause? Was the concept just too difficult for the law enforcement officers to comprehend? I don’t drink so it is not a problem for me, but it sure seems like an extreme reaction and limitation on our personal freedom.
@dumb,
What you miss is that driving on public roadways is a privledge. Having been a victim of a drunk driver, I am all for keeping them off the roadway. And if you don’t want to me stopped in a checkpoint, don’t drive through one. They put up signs, lights and police cars so everyone knows it is up ahead.