Many Morgan Hill area residents will be celebrating St.
Patrick
’s Day Thursday. And police will be manning a roadside sobriety
checkpoing to help make sure motorists are not celebrating too much
with alcohol
Many Morgan Hill area residents will be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day Thursday.
And police will be manning a roadside sobriety checkpoing to help make sure motorists are not celebrating too much with alcohol
“It is a holiday often associated with unrestrained alcohol consumption,” said Lt. Joe Sampson. “The safest practice will always be to designate a driver or choose to have an alcohol-free night.
From approximately 8:30 p.m. until 2 a.m., officers will staff a checkpoint on Monterey Road, south of Old Monterey Road. The purpose of the checkpoint, made possible by a grant from California’s Office of Traffic Safety, is to both educate the public about the dangers of drinking and driving and arrest those persons who are driving over the legal limit of 0.08 perent blood alcohol content.
Sampson said officers will be paying particular attention to persons under 21 years of age who, under California law, must submit to an in-field breathalyzer test and may not have any traceable amount of alcohol in their system. Those persons under 21 found to have alcohol in their system will lose their license for one year and, depending on their blood alcohol content, may be arrested and taken to jail.
“At any age, a DUI arrest is a costly and embarrassing affair,” Sampson said.
For anyone interested in more information about drinking and driving, Sampson said there are a myriad of internet sites including:
n state DMV, www.dmv.ca.gov
n Mother’s Against Drunk Driving (MADD), www.madd.org,
n U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, www.health.org
n California Office of Traffic Safety site, www.ots.ca.gov
The sites contain research intended to educate the public about the dangers of drinking and driving, charts designed to serve as guidelines for knowing your limit, and stories from people whose lives have been forever affected by drunk driving, Sampson said.
