UPDATE, JAN. 15, 1:41 P.M.: The Santa Ana Police Department announced it will also have a checkpoint from 9 tonight through 3 a.m. Saturday in the 500 block of West Warner Avenue.
ORIGINAL POST, JAN. 15, 6:03 A.M.: The Buena Park Police Department holds a DUI/drivers license checkpoint along La Palma Avenue west of Dale Street from 7 tonight through 3 a.m. Saturday.
As usual, officers will be looking for signs of alcohol use by drivers who pass through the stop but, when possible, specially trained cops will evaluate those suspected of drug-impaired driving, “which now accounts for a growing number of impaired driving crashes,” according to the department.
They point to recent statistics that show 30 percent of drivers in fatal crashes had one or more drugs in their systems as well as a study that found active drivers tested positive for drugs that may impair driving (14 percent) than for alcohol (7.3 percent).
Of the drugs, marijuana was most prevalent, at 7.4 percent, slightly more than alcohol, Buena Park cops note.
The department also warns those taking medication–whether prescription or over-the-counter–can greatly intensify the impairment affects by drinking even small amounts of booze.
Funding for the checkpoint comes from a California Office of Traffic Safety grant, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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.