Avoid the 13 holiday campaign begins Friday and ends at midnight
New Year’s Day
Morgan Hill – Holiday party-goers, beware; if you plan to drink alcohol and don’t have a plan for a designated driver or to remain at the party overnight, you’re likely to get charged with driving under the influence.
Although Morgan Hill Police officers and other law enforcement agencies are on the lookout for impaired drivers, the holiday season focuses their attention on drunk and impaired drivers during the Avoid the 13 holiday campaign.
Agencies throughout Santa Clara County will have extra officers out beginning the first minute of Dec. 15 through midnight on New Year’s Day, according to Police Chief Scott Seaman of the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department, who chairs the campaign for the sponsoring Santa Clara County Police Chiefs Association.
“Whether you’re at the limit of .08, over the limit, or even, in some cases, under the limit but still driving recklessly, everyone who pins on a badge to go to work in this county is out after you,” Seaman said. “We’ve all seen the heartbreak impaired drivers cause and are going all-out to prevent it.”
Funding for the agencies that provide special enforcement during the campaign is provided by the California Office of Traffic Safety.
The local push is part of a statewide effort to make the streets safer for the community. The public is encouraged to call 911 to report suspected impaired drivers.
Last year, MHPD officers made twice as many arrests for drunken driving as the year before during the campaign. There were 31 arrests by the department compared to 15 the year before.
There were no fatalities involving drinking and driving last year.
In the nine counties in the Bay Area, during the Avoid the 13 last year there were 2,181 DUI arrests, 56 alcohol-related injury crashes and two fatal crashes, with two people killed, compared to the same period in 2004, when there were 2,619 DUI arrests, 80 alcohol-related injury crashes and 10 fatal crashes, with 11 people killed.
Jan Ford, public information officer for the Avoid the 13 campaign, said she remembers the year the campaign kicked off, in 1972, when there were 13 people killed in 17 days in Santa Clara County.
As a part of the Avoid the 13 campaign, MHPD officers will be holding a checkpoint on Dunne Avenue on Saturday, starting between 8-9pm and ending between 2-3am.
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106 ext. 202 or at md****@mo*************.com.
