Checkpoint Sprouts in Garden Grove Saturday; Hungover Hack Finally Posts Labor Day Stats

Garden Grove police hold a DUI/drivers license checkpoint from 9 p.m. Saturday through 3 a.m. Sunday.

Where exactly?

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Dunno. The city isn't saying. What they are saying–and by “they” I mean “Garden Grove Police Sgt. J. Fischer”–is this: “Over the course of the past three years, DUI collisions have claimed seven lives and resulted in 200 injury crashes harming 87 of our friends and neighbors.”

Speaking of boozy driving, when the final numbers from Orange County's end-of-summer/Labor Day weekend enforcement were released, I was off on a long, lost weekend worthy of Ray Milland (ask Grammy to explain the reference). Fortunately, our roving party did have a designated driver the whole time. Wish I had a designated liver cleanser too.

At least I was on trend with Moscow Mules, the drink of the summer! Talk about blurred lines …

Anyway, during the 18-day, countywide, “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign–which lasted from 12:01 a.m. Friday, Aug. 15, through midnight Monday, Sept. 1, officers representing 38 county law enforcement agencies arrested at least 775 people for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. (There may have been a few more because not all agencies had reported.)

Over the same period in 2013, there were 793 DUI arrests in the O to the C.

There was one death attributed to an impaired driver this Labor Day past in Huntington Beach, which is tragic but, last year, there were four DUI deaths over the same time frame.

The county's anti-DUI task force, known as “Avoid the 38,” warns more operations are coming around Halloween, Thanksgiving Eve and, of course, for several days during the late December/early January holidays.

Funding for Garden Grove's checkpoint and other anti-DUI ops around the county comes from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!

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