IRVINE : Police to Conduct Safety Checkpoints

Within a few weeks, the Police Department will begin conducting roadside checkpoints to look for drivers who are not wearing seat belts in addition to drivers who have had one belt too many.

Police Departments in Irvine, Fountain Valley, La Habra and Orange each received $13,000 grants from the state Office of Traffic Safety to conduct drunk-driving and seat belt checkpoints at least once a month.

The grants paid for self-contained trailers that carry all of the equipment needed to set up a checkpoint. The trailers include signs, traffic cones and an electric generator to light up the area and to light up a telescopic warning sign atop the trailer.

The trailers make it much easier and cheaper for police to conduct a checkpoint, Irvine Traffic Sgt. Al Murray said. The trailer will enable the Police Department to conduct a checkpoint with three or four fewer officers and without the need for public-works employees to help set up the equipment, Murray said.

Until Irvine received the trailer, police had not conducted a checkpoint in two years, Murray said.

As part of the agreement for accepting the trailer, the four police departments have agreed to check motorists for seat belt use as well as to screen for drunk drivers. In a few weeks, Irvine police will set up its trailer near a school to check solely for seat belt use, Murray said. Motorists without seat belts will receive warnings and, in the future, might be issued a ticket, he said.

Although state motorists are required to wear seat belts, the law does not allow police to issue a ticket for violating the law unless the motorists are stopped for another violation. The law changes in January to remove that restriction.

Irvine police have used their new trailer to conduct one drunk-driving checkpoint so far, on Oct. 29. During that operation, police talked with 975 drivers between 7:30 p.m. and midnight, Murray said. Of those, four were given sobriety tests and two failed, he said.

“The really important thing with sobriety checkpoints is they’re really a deterrent and an awareness program,” Murray said. “You don’t really tend to apprehend a lot of drunk drivers compared to the number of cars you stop.”

Of the 975 drivers, 103 were not wearing seat belts and received warnings and literature on how seat belts save lives, Murray said.