Getting a DUI isn't the best way to celebrate the holidays or the beginning of a New Year or finding your life-mate in bed with another individual.
Frankly, there's never a good time for the red and blue lights to start shining in one's rear-view mirror after a few too many mai tais or cosmopolitans. DUIs are the sort of gift that keep on giving, in terms of payments and inconvenience. Add the fact that you've risked the lives of your fellow man–but we're not judging.
That's exactly the gift 590 slightly shnockered or belligerently drunk drivers received during a two-week period before the end of 2010, according to police statistics.
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As part of the California AVOID Anti-DUI program, police officers–working with extra funding to prevent injuries and deaths from alcohol-related auto accidents–stationed themselves throughout the county from Dec. 17 through Jan. 1, paying particular attention to the late-night crowd.
The daily countywide count averaged in the 40s. The most active evening was, not surprisingly, the early hours of New Year's Day, when officials made 60 arrests.
The heightened efforts have ceased, but that's no reason to be any less aware of one's choice of whether or not to drive after drinking. There are plenty of more enjoyable ways to spend thousands of dollars than on fines and a good DUI attorney.
Drive safe, OC.
