The 20-day
“Avoid the 13 – Designate or Incarcerate” campaign came to a
close Wednesday, netting a total of 36 DUI, or driving under the
influence, arrests for the Morgan Hill Police Department, compared
with 42 during the same time period last year.
The 20-day “Avoid the 13 – Designate or Incarcerate” campaign came to a close Wednesday, netting a total of 36 DUI, or driving under the influence, arrests for the Morgan Hill Police Department, compared with 42 during the same time period last year.
DUI arrests in Santa Clara County were also down this year, from 850 last year to 805 this year.
“I think there are two major factors that are responsible for the decrease,” said “Avoid the 13” spokesman Vic Heman. “First of all, I do think there are less people out there drinking and driving. People are really being more careful. The anti-drinking and driving campaigns have pretty well saturated the area. MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and groups like that have really done a good job getting the word out.”
Not only such groups, said Herman, but law enforcement agencies have worked hard to discourage people getting behind the wheel when they’ve had too much to drink.
“I think they have a renewed commitment to keeping the roads safe,” he said. “They have agressively gone after violators … And the fact that consequences are more serious now for drinking and driving makes people take more precautions, like designating a driver or just staying home.”
The other factor he sees playing a role in the drop in arrests this year, Heman said, was the big storms the area experienced during the early part of the “Avoid the 13” campaign, which kicked off Dec. 13.
“I think there were less people on the highways this year,” he said. “Those storms we had right around Christmas kept people inside.”
The campaign ended New Year’s Day. On that day, MHPD officers made two DUI arrests, but none on New Year’s Eve.
“It was pretty quiet,” Sgt. Rick Rodriguez said Thursday. “There were the usual reports of fireworks, a few reports of gunshots.”
Rodriguez said the holiday, a traditional time for revelry, was free from any serious incidents or injuries.
Gilroy residents were not as lucky.
A 19-year-old Gilroy man was killed just five hours into 2003 when he drove his pickup truck off Hecker Pass Highway and into a tree near Santa Teresa Boulevard Wednesday morning.
Kenneth Bosworth was pronounced dead on the scene of the accident at 5:09 a.m. just west of Santa Teresa Boulevard, according to police. Police said toxological results will not be available for several weeks..
Bosworth was the only person in his 1988 Ford pickup, and he was wearing a seatbelt, police said.
“It was probably the blunt force of the collision which killed him,” said Jim Crawford of the South Santa Clara County Fire District’s nearby station at Bonfante Garden’s, who responded to the accident.
No other vehicles were involved in the crash and the road conditions at the time were good, Crawford said.
Road conditions were still dry 12 hours later when police responded to another major accident involving a Gilroy man. But this time the man escaped a collision with a cement wall on Kern Avenue south of Vickery Avenue and a subsequent car fire thanks to a passerby.
The accident occurred at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday when 31-year-old Salvador Martinez drove his car traveling northbound on Kern Avenue into a cement bridge wall, according to police. Following the collision an unnamed man driving behind Martinez on Kern Avenue pulled over and dragged Martinez from his 1992 Lincoln minutes before it exploded into a ball of flames, police said.
Martinez was taken by helicopter to San Jose Medical Center to treat broken right leg and was later released. He was also arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.
“The first officers to respond said the whole scene smelled like alcohol,” said Terry Mayes, spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol. “It was obvious he had been drinking. He’s fortunate he was pulled from the vehicle when he was.”
Martinez was wearing his seatbelt during the accident.
Aside from the traffic accidents, Gilroy police made 16 arrests between 8 p.m. Tuesday night and 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, eight of which were alcohol related.
Four DUI arrests were made in the city on New Year’s Eve, bringing Gilroy’s total DUI arrests to 20 since it began its annual “Avoid the 13” anti-drunk driving campaign on Dec. 13. Last year the city recorded almost twice as many DUIs during the same period.
“We had a lot of calls about loud parties and fights this year, but there was nothing with excessive violence,” Sgt. Noel Provost of the Gilroy Police Department said. “It was one of the busiest New Year’s in the past few years, but luckily nothing too major happened.”
Police are asking any witnesses of Bosworth’s accident to contact officer Frank Bozzo or Mitch Madruga at 846-0350.
