UPDATE, OCT. 24, 11:19 A.M.: The Anaheim Police Department just announced a DUI/drivers license checkpoint in the 1800 block of West Ball Road from 8 tonight through 3 a.m. Saturday.
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ORIGINAL POST, OCT. 24, 6:06 A.M.: If you read the top of the OC Weekly dead tree edition that just hit the streets, you'll see that it informs “We finally cover South Orange County” or somesuch. So do Orange County sheriff's deputies, as the department's DUI Task Force holds “saturation patrols” aimed at stopping and arresting alcohol and drug-impaired drivers in Aliso Viejo, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel and Laguna Woods starting tonight.
The patrols, which cover streets with histories of DUI arrests, collisions and fatalities, run from 7 tonight through 3 a.m. Saturday, according to the sheriff's department.
“This is a zero tolerance crackdown so drive sober or get pulled over,” says sheriff's Sgt. Ray Wert, borrowing the title of the statewide Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign.
Over the past three years, DUI collisions in areas contracted by the OCSD have claimed 21 lives and resulted in 497 injuries, according to the traffic unit.
Funding for the anti-DUI enforcement comes from a California Office of Traffic Safety grant, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.