El Cerrito Police Plan DUI Checkpoint

EL CERRITO, CA — If you have plans for celebrating the Memorial Day Weekend with a cold brew, make sure to include a designated driver in your plans.

The El Cerrito Police Department will conduct a DUI/Drivers License Checkpoint on Saturday, May 27, 2017, at an undisclosed location within the city limits between the hours of 8 p.m. and 2 a.m.

Officers will be looking for signs of alcohol and/or drug impairment, with officers checking drivers for proper licensing, delaying motorists only momentarily. When possible, specially trained officers will be available to evaluate those suspected of drug-impaired driving, which now accounts for a growing number of impaired driving crashes.

Drivers caught driving impaired can expect the impact of a DUI arrest to include jail time, fines, fees, DUI classes, license suspensions and other expenses that can exceed $10,000.

According to the department, "The deterrent effect of High Visibility Enforcement using both DUI checkpoints and DUI Saturation Patrols has proven to lower the number of persons killed and injured in alcohol or drug impaired crashes. Research shows that crashes involving an impaired driver can be reduced by up to 20 percent when well-publicized proactive DUI operations are conducted routinely."

In California, alcohol involved collisions led to 1,155 deaths and nearly 24,000 serious injuries in 2014. Some 30 percent of drivers in fatal crashes had one or more drugs in their systems here in California.

A study of active drivers showed more tested positive for drugs that may impair driving (14 percent) than did for alcohol (7.3 percent). Of the drugs, marijuana was most prevalent, at 7.4 percent, slightly more than alcohol.

-Image via City of Milpitas