Law Officers Zero In on Holiday Drunk Drivers

The temperatures are expected to be in the 70s over the long Memorial Day weekend, but the traffic enforcement community is more interested in the number zero:

“Zero tolerance for the drunk driver, zero deaths from traffic collisions,” Ed Gomez, commander of the California Highway Patrol’s Southern Division, said Thursday, outlining his agency’s goals for the weekend. “We must avoid becoming desensitized because a life was taken in an automobile collision.”

As usual, the CHP will be out in force for a maximum holiday enforcement effort from 6 p.m. today to midnight Monday. For the third consecutive year, the CHP will be augmented by local police officers and deputies in manning checkpoints in Los Angeles County.

According to CHP statistics, 41 people died on roads and highways under the patrol’s jurisdiction over the Memorial Day holiday last year, and another 18 motorists died on streets under local control, for a total of 59 deaths statewide.

CHP spokesman Steve Munday said “roughly 50%” of the fatal traffic accidents were related to alcohol use.

“The lowering of the legal blood limit to 0.08 (from 0.10) will allow more drinking drivers to be removed from our streets and highways,” Gomez said. “Additionally, drivers arrested for driving under the influence will have their licenses immediately confiscated. The bottom line is, why take a chance?”

Special enforcement emphasis will be placed on the first 12 hours of the holiday in the metropolitan Los Angeles area, Munday said.

“There’s going to be an additional 500 officers whose sole responsibility will be drinking drivers,” Munday said.

To mount the effort, the CHP has joined with sheriff’s deputies and officers of local police agencies to man Driving-Under-the-Influence checkpoints and ride on special enforcement patrols.

In the Verdugo Hills area, for example, officers from Glendale, Pasadena and Altadena will join the CHP in operating a checkpoint. Sheriff’s deputies will team up with CHP officers at a checkpoint in Malibu, Munday said.

Besides drunk driving, the CHP cites speed and failure to wear seat belts as the principal reasons for fatal traffic accidents.

“We cry out when an individual dies in a gang-related shooting or a terrorist act and rightfully so,” Gomez said. “Yet, thousands of innocent people are dying each year in traffic collisions and most would still be living if someone had taken seconds to buckle up or shown the common sense to pass the car keys.”

Despite holiday dangers, Caltrans predicts that traffic on Los Angeles County’s 510-mile freeway system will be about 8% greater than on a normal day, when motorists travel an average of 82 million vehicle miles.

If you are one of those traveling, meteorologist Steve Burback of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, says you can expect high temperatures in the 60s or low 70s at the beach, in the upper 50s to low 70s in the mountains and from 100 to 105 degrees at the Colorado River.

Burback expects the weather will cool off a bit Sunday when a weak cold front arrives.

The high at the Los Angeles Civic Center Thursday was 75. The relative humidity ranged from a low of 49% to a high of 89%, according to the National Weather Service.