LANCASTER – The Lancaster Sheriff’s Station will be stepping up its efforts to get impaired drivers off the road, thanks to new $104,400 grant awarded to Lancaster by the California Office of Traffic Safety. The grant is to be used for an anti-DUI program, authorities said.
“These Traffic Safety Grants are an important tool that allow us to do extra enforcement”, said Captain Robert Jonson of Lancaster Sheriff’s Station. “DUI Checkpoints are a proven way to combat drunk and drugged driving and help educate the public about the dangers of this type of behavior.”
The grant activities will specifically target impaired drivers through the use of DUI/driver’s license checkpoints. When possible, specially trained officers will be available to evaluate those suspected of drug-impaired driving.
Drunk and drugged driving are among America’s deadliest crimes.
In 2010, 791 people were killed and over 24,000 were injured in alcohol and drug-impaired crashes in California. In the past year, three people were killed and 64 people were injured in DUI traffic crashes.
Crashes involving alcohol drop by an average of 20 percent when well-publicized checkpoints are conducted often enough; and checkpoints have proven to be the most effective of any of the DUI enforcement strategies, while yielding considerable cost savings of $6 for every $1 spent, authorities said.
“DUI checkpoints have been an essential part of the phenomenal reduction in DUI deaths that we witnessed from 2006 to 2010 in California,” said Christopher J. Murphy, Director of the Office of Traffic Safety. “But since the tragedy of DUI accounts for nearly one third of traffic fatalities, Lancaster needs the high visibility enforcement and public awareness that this grant will provide.”
Funding for this program is from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
This new grant joins the $54,000 grant the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station recently received for a year-long traffic enforcement program. Read more about that grant here.
(Information via press release from the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station.)
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