Accidents on Rise Despite More Arrests of Drunks

Despite stiffer penalties, drunk-driving arrests and alcohol-related accidents have risen dramatically in the San Fernando Valley this year, according to Los Angeles law-enforcement officials.

“We find that the numbers have increased significantly,” said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Dennis Zine. “We don’t think people are getting the message to temper their use of alcohol prior to driving cars.”

During the first five months of 1987, drunk-driving arrests in the Valley have increased by 30% over the same months last year, reversing a steady downward trend of recent years and surpassing an 11% increase in the rest of the city of Los Angeles.

Records for citations are more up-to-date, and Zine said Valley traffic officers have issued 60,939 drunk-driving citations from Jan. 1 through June 30, 1987, contrasted with 38,899 for the same period in 1986.

Serious injury accidents involving drunk drivers in the Valley have also gone up from 93 from January through May, 1986, to 106 during the same period this year, Zine said.

“We’re arresting more and more drunk drivers, but the drunk-driving accidents keep going up this year compared to last, which is kind of against logic,” Sgt. Greg Meyer, of the California Highway Patrol’s Traffic Coordination Section. “The public is apparently not getting the message that there’s serious jail time and probation conditions attached to being convicted of drunk driving and that penalties are much harsher than they were in years past.”

Penalties Increased in ’82

Laws against drunk driving were made tougher in January, 1982. The penalties for drunk driving convictions for first-time offenders include fines ranging from $390 to $1,000, up to six months of jail time and license revocation. Repeat offenders may have to pay up to $5,000 in fines and serve up to one year in prison or jail, Zine said. If serious injuries or deaths are involved, those convicted of felony drunk driving can face up to a 10-year prison sentence or a second-degree murder charge, which carries with it a 15-year-to-life prison sentence.

Zine said that just after the stiffer laws went into effect in 1982, arrest figures initially were high but then dropped for the next few years. He said people may have become more conscious of the penalties a few years after the law went into effect as information about it filtered down to the public.

Yet, these days, serving a jail sentence may have little effect on deterring some drunk drivers, he said.

Repeat Offenders

On Wednesday night when he arrested a middle-aged man for driving under the influence of alcohol on Devonshire Street in Northridge, Zine said, he recognized the man as someone he had just put behind bars for 15 days for a similar offense. He later learned the man had had four previous drunk driving arrests in the last two years.

“One would think with there being more and more enforcement by the LAPD and CHP and virtually every other agency, that the public would understand that they are at risk and there would be less drunk driving going on. But there is not,” Meyer said.

To combat the problem, law enforcement agencies are forming and using specially designated task forces and beefed-up patrols designed to catch drunk drivers. On Saturday night, a task force of 40 California Highway Patrol officers combed West Valley highways and freeways, in particular the Ventura Freeway, and arrested 44 people for driving under the influence. The regular patrol units on duty from the CHP’s West Valley office also arrested 30 drunk drivers in the special enforcement effort.

Many of the drunk driving accidents and arrests occur close to the interchange linking the Ventura Freeway with the San Diego Freeway, a stretch dubbed “deuce alley” by some officers. Deuce Alley is the name given any stretch of road favored by drunk drivers.

Accidents Still on Rise

“It’s frustrating to see the increased number of fatal and serious injury accidents when we are devoting more and more resources and special task forces to arresting drunk drivers,” Los Angeles Police Lt. Alan Kerstein said. “We’ve had tremendous success in arresting hundreds more drunk drivers than we used to, yet they’re still out maiming people as before.

“It’s almost incomprehensible how many people continue to drink to the point where they can’t drive. It just makes you want to hang your head in complete frustration and say ‘What does it take?”’

Zine, who works in the Valley Traffic Division of the LAPD, attributed some of the steady increase in drunk driving arrests in the Valley to the large number of establishments that sell alcohol.

“There’s a phenomenal number of alcohol-dispensing locations, over 1,500,” Zine said. “It’s too accessible and people take advantage of it.”

Zine said that drunk drivers are often found on busy streets where local bars are a common sight, such as Sepulveda, Van Nuys, Foothill and Lankershim boulevards. Streets that feature restaurant-bars or nightclubs such as on Ventura Boulevard are less frequently the site of drunk driving arrests and accidents, he said, because patrons consume food along with alcohol.

“Drunk drivers are centered in areas with a concentration of liquor stores, bars and cocktail lounges, anywhere you have a gathering of bars,” Zine said. “But we haven’t really found an area that’s dry of drunk drivers in the Valley. They all seem to be replete.”

Overall traffic has increased in the Valley during the past several years, contributing to the rise in the number of citations. The traffic has increased at a rate of about 5-7% annually at least since 1983, as housing developments and new businesses have proliferated, according to Allyn Rifkin, head of the Transportation Planning Division for the City of Los Angeles.

Ever-increasing amounts of stress combined with the accessibility of alcohol at numerous establishments lead many people to drink and drive, according to Chayter Mason, a USC professor who analyzes traffic accidents.

Unable to Deal With Stress

“It’s an increasingly stressful world and people don’t stand stress too well, so they take the chance to have drinks and then drive home,” said Mason, associate professor at the Institute of Safety and Systems Management at USC.

Mason is convinced, also, that most people don’t know their own limits and think they are fully capable of driving, even when drunk.

Officers are trained to know those limits and to spot telltale signs that indicate a driver may be intoxicated, said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Mark Lunn. Some of the signs include driving too fast or too slow, tailgating or over-reacting to signs and signals, Lunn said.

A drunk driver is usually easier to spot on a city street where more maneuvers are negotiated than on highways, police officers said.

However, whether on city streets or highways, officers will probably never reach all, or even most, of those driving under the influence of alcohol, Zine said. National statistics indicate that only one out of every 2,000 intoxicated drivers is arrested, he said. And 33% of all those arrested are repeat offenders.

“It’s scary how many drunk drivers are out there, and we just don’t have the time and people to enforce the law the way we’d like to,” Kerstein said.

Zine said that 20 full-time police officers assigned to a drunk driving detail that covers a 220-square mile area in the Valley is “stretching resources to their maximum point.”

“We’re just trying to keep one step ahead of the violator,” Zine said. DRUNK DRIVING ARRESTS

Valley drunk driving arrests made by the Los Angeles Police Department and the California Highway Patrol on city streets and highways.