Police throughout Santa Clara County will begin their annual end-of-summer DUI enforcement campaign Aug. 19 by placing extra officers on the roads and conducting sobriety checkpoints until Labor Day.
The crackdown is known as the “Avoid the 13” campaign, which places extra law enforcement resources on the road to limit drunk or impaired driving during the holidays and other high-traffic times.
“During this period (Aug. 19 to Sept. 5), local law enforcement will show zero tolerance for drunk driving,” reads a press release from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
The Avoid the 13 effort will deploy two DUI/drivers license checkpoints and another 42 DUI “saturation patrols” to stop and arrest alcohol- and drug-impaired drivers during the 18-day end-of-summer period, police said.
Operations in South County include saturation patrols in the cities of Morgan Hill and Gilroy on Aug. 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28 and Sept. 1-5, according to the press release.
The California Highway Patrol will conduct a DUI/license checkpoint at an unspecified location in unincorporated South County the night of Aug. 20.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more than 10,000 people die each year in drunk driving crashes nationwide. In California, 882 deaths at the hands of drunk drivers occurred from 2010 to 2014. During the 2014 Labor Day weekend, 40 percent of the fatalities in traffic crashes involved drunk drivers.
“People need to understand that drunk driving is not only deadly, but it is illegal,” said Sheriff Laurie Smith. “Drunk driving is a massive problem in the United States, with more than 10,000 people dying annually. Drivers need to pay attention to their own driving, but also to others on the road who could be driving drunk. It is your business. If you think you see a drunk driver, report them—call 911.”
Of the 9,967 people who died in impaired-driving accidents in 2014, 64 percent were themselves drunk drivers, the press release added.
The county’s Avoid the 13 DUI task force is funded by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the NHTSA.
