Winter Holiday DUI campaign update

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Lt. Jeff Hallock (714) 904-7042/Gail Krause, (714) 647-1840

Winter Holiday DUI Campaign Update – DUI Arrests Down & No DUI Fatalities

SANTA ANA, California (December 17, 2013) – The Winter Holiday Anti-DUI crackdown has resulted in a significant number of DUI arrests from local routine traffic enforcement and special ‘Avoid the 38’ DUI Task Force deployments over the weekend in Orange County.

From 12:01 a.m. on Friday, December 13 through midnight Sunday December 15 officers representing 38 county law enforcement agencies have arrested 209 individuals for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. In 2012, 227 DUI arrests occurred during the same three (3) day time period. There were no DUI deaths over the weekend. (NOTE: These numbers are only provisional with some agencies yet to report)

Over the course of the next several days of the campaign, extra local DUI saturation patrols will be deployed in the city of Costa Mesa and several other cities that contract with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

All regularly scheduled traffic and patrol officers will focus efforts at stopping and arresting DUI drivers during their normal shifts. Multiple DUI/driver’s license checkpoints, multi-agency DUI task force operations and local roving DUI patrols are all part of this region-wide crackdown during the 20-day Winter Holiday Campaign.

Police, Sheriff and the CHP encourage all motorists to help make your community safer by reporting drunk drivers by calling 9-1-1. Grant funding for this program is provided by the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

DUI arrest data collection will continue through midnight Sunday, January 1, 2014.