UPDATE, DEC. 16, 9:20 A.M.: The Irvine and Santa Ana police departments announced this morning they will conduct separate sobriety checkpoints Saturday night. The Irvine operation runs from 8 p.m. Saturday through 2 a.m. Sunday in the area of Jamboree Road and Michelson Drive. Santa Ana's starts at 9:30 p.m. and ends at 2:30 a.m. in the 1000 block of East Fourth Street.
ORIGINAL POST, DEC. 16, 6:21 A.M.: The California Highway Patrol, Orange County Sheriff’s Department and other local police agencies today kick off anti-DUI enforcement operations that run nightly through the new year.
The “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” enforcement mobilization will include checkpoints and special “saturation patrols” where officers are specifically assigned to seek and pull over boozed or drugged drivers.
For instance, deputies hold a checkpoint tonight somewhere within the sheriff’s department coverage area.
Officials warn that if you’re caught driving impaired by alcohol or drugs, you could face jail time, fines, loss of a driver’s license, towing fees and other DUI expenses, totaling approximately $10,000.
A free California Office of Traffic and Safety Designated Driver VIP (DDVIP) app helps find safe rides home. Learn more about the app via the OTS Facebook: www.facebook.com/CaliforniaOTS.
Funding for the holiday enforcement campaign is provided to local police agencies from OTS grants, 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.