Full Notification

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: July 2, 2019
Contact:
Special Operations Sergeant David Wentworth
510-215-4446
[email protected]

El Cerrito, CA – The El Cerrito Police Department Traffic Unit will be conducting a DUI Checkpoint on July 5, 2019, at an undisclosed location within the city limits between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m.

In recent years, California has seen a disturbing increase in drug-impaired driving crashes. In 2018, The Golden Gate division of The California Highway Patrol released 2017 statistics regarding DUI arrests involving marijuana. 197 of their DUI arrests involved marijuana only. 183 of their DUI arrests involved marijuana and alcohol. These numbers came from only one of the eight divisions of CHP. They also do not include recent statistics after the legalization of marijuana in California. Based on the arrest timeframe, the CHP estimates a 70 percent rise in DUI’s involving marijuana.

The deterrent effect of High Visibility Enforcement using both DUI checkpoints and DUI Saturation Patrols 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.

DUI Checkpoints like this one are placed in locations based on collision statistics and frequency of DUI arrests, affording the greatest opportunity for achieving drunk and drugged driving deterrence. Supervisors within the agency choose checkpoint locations with the focus being on safety of the officers and the public.

Officers will be looking for signs of alcohol and/or drug impairment, with officers checking drivers for proper licensing, delaying motorists only momentarily. 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.

2017 studies have shown that one person dies every 48 minutes as a result of drunk driving crashes. That was a total of 10,874 people in 2017. More than 300,000 people were injured in drunk driving crashes. As high as these numbers may be, there were an estimated 300,000 instances of drunk driving with only 3200 arrests made.

In 2017, a total of 1,147 children 14 and younger were killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes. Of those 1,147 fatalities, 220 (19%) occurred in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes. Out of those 220 deaths, 118 (54%) were occupants of vehicles with drivers who had BACs of .08 or higher, and another 29 children (13%) were pedestrians or pedal-cyclists struck by drivers with BACs of .08 or higher. 71 (32%) were occupants of other vehicles, and 2 (1%) were drivers. (Madd.org)

In the age of technology, there is an abundance of transportation options available 24 hours a day. If you have not elected a designated driver for the occasion, drivers are encouraged to use transportation apps like Uber, Lyft, Curb, mytaxi, or even just a good old-fashioned taxicab.

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.