The Milpitas Police Department’s traffic safety unit will conduct a DUI/Drivers License checkpoint on Saturday, Dec. 16, on South Main Street, between the hours of 8 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.
In recent years, California has seen a disturbing increase in drug-impaired driving crashes. The Milpitas Police Department supports the new effort from the Office of Traffic Safety that aims to educate all drivers that “DUI Doesn’t Just Mean Booze.”
If you take prescription drugs, particularly those with a driving or operating machinery warning on the label, you might be impaired enough to get a DUI. Marijuana can also be impairing, especially in combination with alcohol or other drugs, and can result in a DUI.
DUI checkpoints like this one are placed in locations based on collision statistics and frequency of DUI arrests, affording the greatest opportunity for achieving drunk and drugged driving deterrence.
Locations are chosen with safety considerations for the officers and the public.
In California, alcohol involved collisions led to 1,155 deaths and nearly 24,000 serious injuries in 2014 because someone failed to designate a sober driver. Over the course of the past three years, Milpitas Police Department officers have investigated 112 DUI collisions, which have claimed one life and resulted in another 49 injuries.
Officers will look for signs of alcohol and/or drug impairment, with officers checking drivers for proper licensing, delaying motorists only momentarily. When possible, specially trained officers will be available to evaluate those suspected of drug-impaired driving, which now accounts for a growing number of impaired driving crashes.
Drivers caught driving impaired can expect the impact of a DUI arrest to include jail time, fines, fees, DUI classes, license suspensions, and other expenses that can exceed $10,000, not to mention the embarrassment when friends and family find out.
To report a drunk driver, call 911.
