Suisun City Police Launch Program to Combat DUI Deaths and Injuries

New enforcement measures to combat impaired driving are coming in 2010 as a result of the Suisun City Police Department being awarded a $97,827 traffic safety grant for a year-long anti-DUI program aimed at preventing deaths and injuries on our roadways.

“Keeping our streets safe from drunk drivers is one of the Department’s top priorities this year. Our officers will be on patrols looking for drunk drivers and we will have a zero tolerance,” Suisun City Police Chief Ed Dadisho said.

The special DUI Enforcement and Awareness grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety will assist in efforts to reduce the number of persons killed and injured in collisions related to alcohol and other drugs.

Grant activities will specifically target impaired driving offenders as well as educate the public on the dangers of impaired driving. This will be done through the use of DUI/driver’s license checkpoints, warrant searches and stakeouts for repeat DUI offenders, saturation patrols, and court stings targeting DUI offenders with suspended or revoked driver licenses who get behind the wheel after leaving court.

During a recent DUI/driver's license checkpoint operation, the Suisun City Police Department

• Screened 964 vehicles
• Conducted 4 field sobriety tests resulting in one arrest
• Issued 12 non-DUI related citations
• Towed 12 vehicles
  

Drunk driving is one of America’s deadliest crimes. In 2008, over 11,700 people died in highway crashes involving a driver or motorcycle operator with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher.

“Last year in California 1,029 died in alcohol impaired crashes, a 9 percent reduction in deaths from 2007,” said Christopher J. Murphy, Director of the Office of Traffic Safety. “This grant will help keep that trend going by getting drunk drivers off the roadways of Suisun City, making it safer for everyone.”

New this year is the addition of special Motorcycle Safety Enforcement Operations. Motorcycle fatalities have been on the rise in California, increasing 175 percent statewide in the last decade, from 204 killed in 1998 to 560 killed in 2008.

Suisun City police officers will be conducting specialized enforcement efforts throughout the course of the next year. Extra officers will be on duty patrolling areas frequented by motorcycles. Officers will be cracking down on traffic violations made by motorcyclists, and other vehicle drivers, that result in far too many motorcycle collisions, injuries and deaths.

Funding for the grant comes from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.