Stricter Law Fails to Slow Fatality Rate on Highways : Traffic: 65 people are killed over Labor Day weekend. Figure is higher than last year despite tougher blood-alcohol limit.

Despite a stricter blood-alcohol legal limit and a high-profile campaign exhorting motorists to “buckle up,” eight people were killed in traffic accidents in Los Angeles County during the Labor Day weekend, the California Highway Patrol reported Tuesday.

Sixty-five fatalities were recorded across the state, topping last year’s Labor Day weekend toll, officials said. Although detailed information was not immediately available, more than 50% of the fatalities were alcohol-related, CHP spokeswoman Lydia Martinez said.

During the same period last year, 58 people were killed in California traffic accidents, six in L.A. County. Half of those also were believed to be alcohol-related, Martinez said.

“Even when the number of deaths goes up, the percentage of those due to alcohol follows along at about the same pace,” Martinez said.

The CHP has been conducting a yearlong campaign promoting driving safety habits--not driving while intoxicated, adhering to speed limits and wearing seat belts--in an effort to reduce the number of traffic casualties and deaths, Martinez said.

“It’s sad, but some people don’t seem to get it,” she said.

By midnight Tuesday, police roadblocks and traffic stops in Los Angeles County accounted for 639 arrests of suspected drunk drivers, officials said. The figure fell short of last year’s 678 arrests, and may have been the result of relatively light holiday traffic throughout the county, officials said.

“With gas prices going up, it’s possible that a lot of people just decided to stay home,” Martinez said. She added that price increases have been steeper in urban areas such as Los Angeles and motorists in other parts of the state may not have been as affected.

Statewide, the number of drunk-driving arrests during the holiday increased to 2,793, compared with 2,499 arrests made over the same period in 1989. CHP officials attributed the overall increase, in part, to a recent state law that sets a stricter limit on the amount of alcohol drivers can consume before considered legally intoxicated. The limit went from a .10% blood-alcohol level to .08%.

Among those who died on Los Angeles County roads this weekend was Moshe Ellerbock, 18, of Pasadena, who was a passenger in a car that hit a traffic light pole in North Hollywood early Sunday, police said. In East Los Angeles on Sunday, a car driven by Felipe Hernandez, 20, of Anaheim, ran a red light and slammed broadside into another car, killing the unidentified driver, police said. The second car slid into two other vehicles, injuring two occupants and a pedestrian. Hernandez was arrested on suspicion of felony manslaughter.

Thomas Jones, 30, of Upland, died Sunday afternoon in Pomona after losing control of his pickup truck while on the interchange between the Foothill and San Bernardino freeways.

Sook Hi Lee, 72, of Sherman Oaks, died after driving his car through a stoplight in Van Nuys and striking another vehicle, police said. About 8 p.m. Sunday, a 26-year-old motorcyclist died in Hollywood after he ran a red light and rammed a passing car. Shortly afterward in southeast Los Angeles, a motorcycle crashed into two parked cars, killing a 15-year-old passenger and critically injuring the driver. Neither victim was identified by police.

Martinez said that 41 of the 51 motorists who died in CHP’s jurisdiction throughout California this Labor Day weekend were not wearing seat belts.

“The way to explain what happens on the roadway during the holidays is to show people the statistics,” Martinez said. “I don’t know what way to get the message through that is clearer than that.”