SPPD: Grant to send clear message drunk driving will not be tolerated
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Police Department
Published: November 18, 2009
Sending a clear message that drunk driving will not be tolerated in the community is the focus of a state grant awarded to the Santa Paula Police Department.
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Times
Sending a clear message that drunk driving will not be tolerated in the community is the focus of a state grant awarded to the Santa Paula Police Department. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration grant of $49,195 - distributed and overseen by the California Office of Traffic Safety - will be used by the SPPD to fund new anti-DUI enforcement efforts to prevent deaths and injuries on local roadways.
The grant will cover a variety of anti-DUI programs for one-year, according to Police Chief Steve MacKinnon, who is confident the programs made possible by the funding “will be a major tool in our efforts to stop drunk driving.... Our officers are investigating too many incidents where alcohol was a major contributor to injuries and deaths.” With the grant, he added, “We will be able to make Santa Paula safer, while sending the clear message that this community does not tolerate drunk driving.”
More emphasis on catching drunk drivers paid off for the Santa Paula Police Department, which saw a dramatic 30.72 percent increase in DUI arrests in 2008. In 2007, 124 people were arrested for driving under the influence, compared to 179 arrested last year.
The increase, MacKinnon said in an earlier interview, resulted from officers engaging in a “friendly” but serious rivalry in getting impaired drivers off the streets. That effort, he added, included those officers with a professional involvement dealing with drunk driving accidents or other incidents - including violent crime - where too much liquor was a factor.
The special DUI Enforcement and Awareness grant is to assist in efforts to reduce the number of persons killed and injured in alcohol and other drug related collisions. The grant activities will specifically target DUI offenders, as well as educate the public on the dangers of impaired driving.
The latter will be accomplished through the use of DUI/driver’s license checkpoints, warrant searches and stakeouts for repeat DUI offenders, saturation patrols, and court stings targeting DUI offenders with suspended or revoked driver licenses who get behind the wheel after leaving court.
SPPD Lieutenant Troyce Reynolds remembers when, as a young rookie officer at court, “You would see guys get their license suspended, go out, get in their car... and drive home.” And such action can be a precursor to again driving and drinking, even with a suspended license.
Reynolds is now working with SPPD officers to “formulate what specifically we’ll do” to further the anti-DUI effort. “We have some officers” highly interested in programs to prevent drinking and driving as well as arresting those that take the wheel when they are under the influence whom Reynolds said would be a core group of the effort.
And with the grant funding to offset overtime expenses, he expects DUI Checkpoints, a multi-agency effort, to be well staffed with SPPD officers: “Our guys will be able to do what they enjoy doing and take those who are drinking and driving off the road” before they can hurt others and/or themselves.
Drunk driving is one of America’s deadliest crimes: In 2008, more than 11,700 people died in highway crashes involving a driver or motorcycle operator with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher. But statistics show that beefed-up enforcement and education on the dangers of drinking and driving do work.
“Last year in California, 1,029 died in alcohol impaired crashes, a 9 percent reduction in deaths from 2007,” said Christopher J. Murphy, director of the Office of Traffic Safety. “This grant will help keep that trend going by getting drunk drivers off the roadways of Santa Paula, making it safer for everyone.”
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