Wet weather keeps drivers off the streets over holiday
By Kristen Munson and Marilyn Dubil
Morgan Hill – When it rains it pours. The Morgan Hill Police Department made twice as many arrests this year for drunken driving as last year during the holiday season’s Avoid the 13 campaign.
In Santa Clara County, however, police officials expected to arrest more than 600 impaired drivers in 18 days – the final figure was only 562 arrests – a number campaign organizers attribute to the rainy weather and increased education. Last year, 645 people were arrested countywide.
“The chair of the campaign, Mountain View Police Chief Scott Vermeer, kind-of challenged everybody to frustrate the cops in a good way – by driving sober,” said Avoid the 13 spokesperson Jan Ford. “And they did.”
She believes the heavy rains this weekend deterred many drivers from hitting the roads, which contributed to the reduction of DUI arrests.
Law enforcement agencies countywide participated in the holiday crackdown, which began Dec. 16 and ended Monday at midnight.
Morgan Hill Police made 31 arrests during the campaign, compared to 15 last year.
“Our numbers were low last year, but we had more cars out on the road this year,” MHPD Sgt. Mark Brazeal said Monday. “Anytime you deploy more officers out there, you’re bound to intercept more impaired drivers.”
Brazeal said most of Morgan Hill’s arrests came during the beginning of the campaign, with only one DUI arrest on New Year’s Eve. He attributed the decline to the weather, which kept many people snug at home.
“What we really want to see is the education working,” Ford explained. “And we want to see the (alcohol-related) injuries go down.”
While there were no fatalities this year – compared with three in the county last year – there were nine additional alcohol-related injury crashes bringing the total to 25. MHPD had no injury crashes to handle during this campaign, however there were two collisions resulting in property damage that were alcohol-related.
For the past three years, arrests for driving under the influence have decreased in Santa Clara County.
The California Highway Patrol’s Hollister-Gilroy office made 27 this year, compared to 34 the year before.
Special strike teams are formed to perform roadside sobriety checks and educational appearances. Most patrols were altered to coincide with the hours most DUIs occur.
“We had DUI units out every single night, plus all our other officers were out on the roads,” said Sgt. Wes Stanford. “We made it a focus.”
According to Stanford, officers made frequent stops and managed to pull over many DUI suspects who had prior offenses. One woman was arrested twice in the same weekend during the campaign, he said.
More than a third of the officers in the department attended a three-day course taught by the CHP this year where they learned the newest field sobriety tests and procedures.
“It’s like that old saying – luck favors the prepared soul,” Stanford said.
