DUI/driver’s license checkpoint planned this Friday
–The San Luis Obispo Police Department Traffic Safety Unit will be conducting a DUI/Driver’s License Checkpoint on Dec. 21, in the city of San Luis Obispo.
High Visibility Enforcement using DUI checkpoints has proven to lower the number of persons killed and injured in alcohol or drug-impaired crashes. Research shows that crashes involving an impaired driver can be reduced by up to 20-percent when well-publicized proactive DUI operations are conducted routinely.
In California, alcohol involved collisions led to 1,155 deaths and nearly 24,000 injuries in 2014 because someone failed to designate a sober driver. Over the course of the past three years, San Luis Obispo Police Officers have investigated 205 DUI collisions which have claimed two lives and resulted in another 62 injuries.
Officers will be looking for signs of alcohol and/or drug impairment. When possible, specially trained officers will be available to evaluate those suspected of drug-impaired driving, which now accounts for a growing number of impaired driving crashes.
In recent years, California has seen a disturbing increase in drug-impaired driving crashes. San Luis Obispo Police Department supports the new effort from the Office of Traffic Safety that aims to educate all drivers that “DUI Doesn’t Just Mean Booze.” If you take prescription drugs, particularly those with a driving or operating machinery warning on the label, you might be impaired enough to get a DUI. Marijuana can also be impairing, especially in combination with alcohol or other drugs, and can result in a DUI.
Studies of California drivers have shown that 30 percent of drivers in fatal crashes had one or more drugs in their systems. A study of active drivers showed more tested positive for drugs that may impair driving (14 percent) than did for alcohol (7.3 percent). Of the drugs, marijuana was most prevalent, at 7.4 percent, slightly more than alcohol. Everyone should be mindful that if you’re taking medication – whether prescription or over-the-counter – drinking even small amounts of alcohol can greatly intensify the impairment effects.
Drivers caught driving impaired can expect the impact of a DUI arrest to include jail time, fines, fees, DUI classes, license suspensions and other expenses that can exceed $10,000 not to mention the embarrassment when friends and family find out.
Funding for this DUI operation is provided to San Luis Obispo Police Department by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, reminding everyone to ‘Report Drunk Driver – Call 9-1-1’.
