Sheriff’s Saturation Patrol Puts Holiday Heat on Drunk Drivers

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department has revived the Saturation Patrol in an effort to catch drunk drivers during the holiday season.

The unit, made up of five deputies, will patrol the cities of Solana Beach, Del Mar, Encinitas, Vista, San Marcos, Poway, Lemon Grove and Santee, Sheriff’s Lt. Jim Hartshorn said.

The program, which began Monday night, will be in effect between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. until Dec. 31.

This is the second year the Sheriff’s Department has used this method to catch drunk drivers, Hartshorn said. Last year, the program was used in conjunction with sobriety checkpoints to determine which method caught more drunk drivers.

As a result, the Sheriff’s Department found that the Saturation Patrol caught more drivers than the checkpoints, he said.

Checkpoints reduce the number of accidents but do not produce many arrests, Hartshorn said. The reason, according to the Sheriff’s Department, is that the drunk drivers tend to stay off the roads because they have heard of the checkpoints.

Law enforcement agencies conducting sobriety checks are required to advertise in advance that they will conduct the checkpoints as well as announce their location an hour before they open, he said.

In addition, the checkpoints must be set up so that drivers have a way of bypassing them, he said.

“Those who get caught are caught because they are so drunk they don’t know where they are or because they think they can beat the system,” Hartshorn said.

Checkpoints “reduce accidents but they don’t produce the number of arrests that people think,” he said.

In contrast, the Saturation Patrol catches more drunk drivers, Hartshorn said.

Those arrested for drunk driving will be arrested, booked and have their license suspended for 45 days, Hartshorn said.

“We intend to make it as difficult as we possibly can” to let drunk drivers back on the road, Hartshorn said.

The deputies who make up the Saturation Patrol come from different sheriff’s substations in the cities that will be patrolled, Hartshorn said.

Those deputies have demonstrated an ability to detect the signs of a drunk driver, said Hartshorn.

“They are deputies (who) can catch subtle nuances, such as stopping short at a stop,” he said. “They can catch particular motions, little things that can seem insignificant.”