DUI/license checkpoints will be held tonight and Saturday night as part of a 18-day campaign by Sonoma County police agencies cracking down on drunken drivers.
Petaluma Police Sgt. Ken Savano, coordinator for the Avoid the 13-Sonoma County DUI Task Force, said in a statement that police would not disclose which cities would have the checkpoints.
As of Thursday, the campaign, which ends Monday, had resulted in 124 drivers being arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Twenty-five DUI warrant suspects also have been arrested. The campaign also tracks the number of DUI-related injury crashes. So far, five people were hurt in five crashes during the first 14 days of the crackdown.
Last year, 252 people were arrested, and there were eight crashes that injured 10 people.
Funding for the campaign, which requires overtime for officers from the participating police agencies, comes from the state Office of Traffic Safety via the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Dave
Be safe and smart people! Get a designated driver, or take public transportation. Have a safe and smart Holiday weekend. And when in doubt, don’t drive.
September 3rd, 2010 2:45 pm
Luke
I’m not a big fan of these but, they keep uninsured illegals off the streets saving the lives of many people.
September 3rd, 2010 3:25 pm
Duh
I love the checkpoints….keep’em going. If you’re dumb enough to drive drunk… without a legal license… or vehicle registration… then you need to get busted and pay the price for being stupid.
September 3rd, 2010 3:36 pm
SonomaLass
I can see how stopping intoxicated drivers saves lives, and I support this program. I fail to see what a driver’s immigration, or even insurance, status has to do with saving lives, though.
September 3rd, 2010 3:45 pm
Kris
These things are so easy to spot and avoid. It’s pretty silly.
September 3rd, 2010 3:56 pm
Offramp
Immigration status has nothing to do with it. Licensing status does. Those with suspended or revoked licenses, or who have never had a license, are involved in up to four times the average amount of fatal crashes. Not having insurance means you are not able to pay when you are the cause of a crash.
September 3rd, 2010 4:01 pm
Ari
I agree with SonomaLass Illegal undocumented people don’t cause all the accidents is dumb, intoxictaed and decide to get behind the wheel thats people that need to be paying
September 3rd, 2010 4:02 pm
J.D.
Tonight’s is in the Cloverdale area.
September 3rd, 2010 4:30 pm
Dave
Ari and SonomaLass, again, there is nothing to do with Immigration status at the checkpoints as Offramp said. All about driving under the influence (alcohol or drugs) and having valid license and registration. Think public safety here. If you are impaired, you are a danger to other drivers. If you do not have a license, you likely have never had one, or have not passed a test (written or road) and are a danger to other drivers. Otherwise we would simply issue a license to everyone who paid a fee and applied. This is all about making our roads a safer place, for everyone, drivers, passengers, pedestrians, cyclists, police and emergency services. Fewer impaired and unlicesed drivers on the roads means better safety for all of us.
September 3rd, 2010 4:33 pm
Dave
Oh, and my apoligies, you may also have had a license and have had it suspended or revoked for any number of reasons. I think we can all agree, we don’t want those individuals driving either.
Have a safe a fun weekend out there.
September 3rd, 2010 4:38 pm
joseph Donegan
The only people against these checkpoints are the ones who have never had a loved one or friend killed by an unlicensed, drunk, or in this country illegally and thus unable to read our road sign person. Sometimes the person is all three at once and in fact there are some 1700 illegal immigrants in our state prison right now just from little Sonoma County. That is cost excess of some 108 million a year to house these people in state prison. To put the problem in perspective realize there are only 1100 unionized grape pickers in Sonoma county.
September 3rd, 2010 4:55 pm
Sandra
Dont worry, Undocumented immigrants go to bed early becuause they have to get up at 6am to do the hard field jobs that citizens do not want to do. They will not be doing the drunk driving. And yes, they can read the traffic signs, they are not blind.
September 3rd, 2010 6:35 pm
J.D.
Whoever said that “[T]he only people against these checkpoints are the ones who have never had a loved one or friend killed by an unlicensed, drunk” may not be right, even if he were correct, would it be a good idea to base laws and policies that affect vast numbers of citizens on the admittedly painful personal experiences of a minority of people who have lost loved ones to drunk drivers?
September 3rd, 2010 7:06 pm
lawman
Don’t drive after you’ve had a few.
Make sure you have a license & insurance.
If you can’t do these simple things, then stay the hell of the roads !!!
September 3rd, 2010 8:02 pm
Kathy S
Luke. You are kind of a pathetic bigot as the checkpoints are for DRUNK DRIVERS, not for “illegals”. Duh.
September 3rd, 2010 9:49 pm
Luke The Good
50% of licensed drivers in California are uninsured, back in the early 2000′s. Why do you think you have uninsured motorist insurance? 50%. That’s the licensed drivers! Probably higher percentage now as people reason between necessary expenses or car insurance.
September 4th, 2010 12:12 am
joseph Donegan
Relatively few people are killed by homicide, and in fact in over 40% of the cases an arrest is never made. Are you saying J.D. that we should just stop investigating these crimes and end our laws against murder? Seems you have a fallacy of logic in your reasoning. The most common form of mental illness among our college age youth is in fact alcoholism. For every billion dollars in profits the adult beverage industry makes selling to this segment of the population, three billion in social services are rendered. Here is an interesting video that does not try to put blame on any party, just present the facts.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/62974/haze
September 4th, 2010 4:20 am
md
I hate the check points !!! they open the door to the disappearance of our freedom. During the last check points in Sonoma very few people people were arrested for DUI and many for all other reasons. This is WRONG and I hope that soon, the courts will reverse their standing in this regard.
September 4th, 2010 7:57 am
Sara
If they really wanted to crackdown drunk drivers they should have been in healdsburg outside of the wine tasting event this weekend. It is obvious that they are trying to crackdown on illegal immigrants. Why don’t they just give them an opportunity to acquire a license? I bet that they would. Besides, the state would benefit from license and registration fees.
September 5th, 2010 8:07 pm
John
I am with you md. It is becoming a police state.
September 5th, 2010 9:55 pm
Dave
Wow, did we all just become ignorant somewhere along the way? There is a simple methodology for avoiding issues, simply play by the rules, obey the laws and you have zero issues at all. The checkpoints are just that, a checkpoint, to check to ensure that you are not under the influence, and are driving validly, with a license and insurance. This works to ensure the general public safety. You ahve absolutely no, and I mean no diappearance of your freedom, as these checkpoints are random and not every day at the same place. They are placed in different places around the community. And a police state? Really? Last I checked we still move freely about as we choose well over 93% of the time on the roads in which they ran a checkpoint. Think about it, if you ran a checkpoint every weekend on Friday and Saturday night for 6 hours (at the same place) that is 12 hours a weekend say 4 weekends a month, which is a total of 48 hours a month. in a 30 day month you have a total of 720 hours. That is 6.66% of the time, at one point on one road. Now figure it out by how many miles of roads in just one county and I am sure, absolutely sure that it is less than 1% of the time.
And as nice as it would be to say just license everyone, that is also not possible. In order to do so you have to prove your identity and age, and be in this country legally. That is in fact a much larger issue to be tackled elsewhere, but one that must be addressed.
And again, I am no hypocrit, I have made my mistakes, and still fully support the actions to keep us all safe. As a aprent, concerned citizen and member of our community we have all have a choice, just make the right one. Play by the rules, dont’t drink and drive, have a license and insurance. And then just be ready to show those things if you do in fact go through a checkpoint, it will be easy and painless if and when that happens. It’s your choice, just make the right one and be safe.
September 7th, 2010 9:24 am
Jwhite
@md Yes the checkpoints are out of control but just like you said in sonoma they got people for other things….Well of course!! I work in sonoma and the driving is absolutely horrible. Illegals, Wine tasters, Young kids with nothing to do etc. Believe me if you live in sonoma you know what I am talking about. And it works in every city if you look closely enough. Cloverdale (lots of drinking drivers because of low police presence), Santa Rosa sebastopol road( because of heavily unlicensed and intoxicated drivers), Cotati (because of bars and drivers) etc etc. And its not being racist, or putting stereotypes on people its FACT if you drive around 8 hrs a day all over the county you will see it like I do. sorry but fact.
September 9th, 2010 8:10 am
Oscar
To all of those who still thinking only illegals drink and drive check the news papers, for every 10 people arrested 8 are white people with license please focus on the issue and not at you giving human stupidity, if the police can tell us why they don’t go to The bars at downtown and arrest them before get on their cars, officer savanna also should tell us how much of the resources they been put into this efforts whe all they can vote is for stop selling alcohol at certain times of the day and have a police car out of every bar in town
January 2nd, 2011 8:35 pm
MrModoc
@Oscar: If you actually took the time to follow conversations on this thread you would see that NOBODY stated illegal immigrants are the only ones who drive drunk. They are saying that the checkpoints are for drunk drivers and unlicensed/uninsured drivers. Laws are put into effect for very good reasons. If you can follow the rules, expect to take responsibility for yourself. It’s how the world works.
September 3rd, 2011 1:37 pm