Santa Monica Police to Combat Roadway Deaths and Injuries with DUI Checkpoints

The following is a press release from the Santa Monica Police Department:

Santa Monica Police to Combat Roadway Deaths and Injuries with DUI Checkpoints
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Santa Monica Police Department has been awarded a new traffic safety grant for an anti-DUI program aimed at preventing deaths and injuries on our roadways.  Additional enforcement measures to combat impaired driving are coming as a result of a recent $43,200.00 grant awarded to Santa Monica by the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS).   The Santa Monica Police Department is dedicated to keeping our streets safe through both enforcement and education.
 
Captain Carolin Larson of the Santa Monica Police Department states that the DUI Checkpoint Grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety will enable the police department to apprehend people driving while impaired and to provide education to the community through these checkpoints.
 
The special DUI Checkpoint Grant is to assist in efforts to reduce the number of persons killed and injured in alcohol- and other drug-related collisions in the community.  The grant activities will specifically target offenders who drive impaired, as well as educate the public on the dangers of impaired driving through the use of DUI/driver’s license checkpoints.  When possible, specially trained officers will be available to evaluate those suspected of drug-impaired driving.
 
Drunk and drugged driving is among America’s deadliest crimes. In 2010, 791 people were killed and over 24,000 injured in alcohol- and drug-impaired crashes in California.  Crashes involving alcohol drop by an average of 20 percent when well-publicized checkpoints are conducted often enough.  Checkpoints have proven to be the most effective of any of the DUI enforcement strategies, while yielding considerable cost savings of $6 for every $1 spent.
 
“DUI checkpoints have been an essential part of the phenomenal reduction in DUI deaths that we witnessed from 2006 to 2010 in California,” said Christopher J. Murphy, Director of the Office of Traffic Safety.  “But since the tragedy of DUI accounts for nearly one third of traffic fatalities, Santa Monica needs the high visibility enforcement and public awareness that this grant will provide.”
 
Funding for this program is from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.