'Avoid the 13' campaign issues correction: DUIs up from last year

In a 21-day holiday DUI crackdown that started Dec. 12 and ended at midnight Jan.1, law enforcement officers in Sonoma County brought in 250 DUI suspects, not 176 as the ‘Avoid the 13’ group had previously reported. This is a 13 percent increase from last year’s total of 222 arrests, not a decrease.
There is still reported just one fatality, that of a pedestrian who was under the influence of alcohol in Petaluma. The driver in that incident was not under the influence. Last year, one person died in a DUI crash.
‘Avoid the 13’ coordinator Sgt. Doug Schlief of the Santa Rosa Police Dept. said increased DUI enforcement included sobriety checkpoints, in-city DUI patrols, California Highway Patrol freeway saturation and emphasis on DUI enforcement with officers on regular beats.
The campaign is named for the 13 law enforcement agencies in Sonoma County and is funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. ‘Avoid the 13’ is a member of the nine-county Bay Area Regional Avoid campaign.
DUI arrests took a drop in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, said CHP Officer Hugo Mendoza, standing at 2,704 compared with 3,360 last year for a 19 percent reduction. Five people died in DUI crashes in the region, compared with three last year.