Avoid the 14 Holiday DUI Enforcement

For Immediate Release: December 4, 2007
For further information, contact:
Jan Ford, Public Information, "Avoid the 14"
(650) 322-9121  Cell: (650) 269-2148
janfordpr@aol.com

IMPAIRED DRIVERS IN VENTURA COUNTY ARE TARGETS OF 19-DAY HOLIDAY DUI CRACKDOWN BY AVOID THE 14 STARTING DEC. 14

 Public encouraged to report DUI drivers by dialing 911

 An intense 19-day law enforcement holiday campaign against impaired drivers in Ventura County begins Friday, Dec. 14, with all 14 of the county’s law-enforcement agencies keeping their eyes peeled for DUI suspects through freeway saturation, four sobriety and driver’s license checkpoints and in-city DUI patrols.

Ventura police will field the first sobriety checkpoint on opening night starting at 9 p.m., said Corporal Jeff Corbin. The department will also run a DUI saturation patrol on Dec. 29.

Avoid the 14 plans sobriety checkpoints on two consecutive Fridays, Dec. 15 and 21, the first in Oxnard and the second in Fillmore, with another in Simi Valley on Saturday, Dec. 29.

Eighty percent of available officers from the CHP’s Ventura and Moorpark area commands will be on duty over the Christmas and New Year’s weekends, according to Lt. Casey Cronin of the Ventura office and Capt. Cliff Williams of the Moorpark squad.

While all police agencies will emphasize DUI enforcement with officers on regular beats, others have special plans extending beyond sobriety checkpoints:

• Sgt. John Adamcyzk of the Simi Valley Police Dept. reports that overlapping evening shifts add to DUI coverage.
• Lt. Marcus Gherardi of the US Coast Guard, Station Channel Islands Harbor, comments that officers “will board recreational vessel to educate the public on boating while intoxicated laws and pursue BUI arrests.”
• Oxnard police will run extra DUI patrols on weekends, and saturation patrols throughout the campaign, said Officer Jamie Brown. An extra motorcycle officer will be assigned to DUI duties on New Year’s Eve.
• Officers from the California State Parks system will adjust hours to cover prime DUI times, said Supervising Ranger Eric Hjelstrom.
• Santa Paula police will field DUI saturation patrols and post overtime for Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, reports Officer Dan Potter.
• Officer Dan Borgstrom of the Cal State University Channel Islands police reports that the department will post overtime and adjust patrol hours to cover prime DUI times.

“We arrested 287 people for driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs during last year’s Avoid the 14 winter campaign,” said Senior Officer Humberto Jimenez of the Oxnard Police Dept., campaign coordinator. “We expect to reach that figure again or even surpass if the public doesn’t help us out by driving stone-cold sober and reporting erratic driving to mobile 911.”

No one died at the hands of an impaired driver over last year’s holiday campaign, the county’s first.

The campaign joins 41 other similar countywide campaigns in California to cover 71 percent of the state, all of which are funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The Avoid movement began in 1973 in Santa Clara County with Avoid the 13, seven years before the formation of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Link to California Avoid

http://www.californiaavoid.org/