105 Drivers Arrested in 1st Night of Sweep : Crackdown: About 150 police officers blanket the Valley in the department’s largest effort against drunk drivers. They intend to keep the heat on through New Year’s.

Police arrested 105 motorists on suspicion of drunk driving in the San Fernando Valley Friday night and early Saturday morning in what they said was the largest single-night effort ever to catch motorists driving while drunk.

“The campaign this weekend is an effort to notify the public that drinking and driving will not be tolerated,” said Sgt. Ray Lombardo of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division.

During the drunk-driving sweep, 150 officers, most of them on motorcycles, patrolled the streets across the Valley from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., Sgt. Dennis Zine said.

Another task force hit the streets Saturday night, joined by California Highway Patrol officers on area freeways.

The sweep was expected to conclude early Sunday morning.

Unannounced sweeps will be conducted from now until after the New Year’s holiday, Zine said.

Instead of setting up sobriety checkpoints, police fanned out across the Valley watching for possibly drunk drivers.

Those who were arrested were taken to a special Immediate Booking and Release System station, consisting of two converted buses parked behind the Van Nuys division headquarters.

After administering an alcohol test and fingerprinting the suspects, the arresting officers immediately returned to the streets to look for more drunk drivers while other police employees booked those who had been arrested.

Those who refused to be tested for alcohol could have their licenses automatically suspended for a year, Zine said.

Normally, only about 20 officers are assigned to combat drunk driving in the Valley, Lombardo said.

Typically, those officers focus on one of the Police Department’s five Valley divisions.

The sweep also differed from usual enforcement efforts because it was joined by officers from all five LAPD divisions in the Valley as well as Valley traffic officers.

About 23% of the fatal accidents in the Valley this year have involved a drunk driver, Lombardo said. “So our efforts are aimed at taking the drunk driver off the street before he’s involved in an accident,” he added.

By Nov. 4, 23 people had been killed in traffic accidents involving drunk drivers in the Valley this year, according to police statistics.

Drunk-driving accidents during the period, however, actually decreased about 14% compared with last year, from 1,575 to 1,348.