Look For More Daly City DUI Checkpoints This Holiday Season

A new traffic safety grant for an anti-DUI program aimed at preventing deaths and injuries on Daly City roadways has been awarded to the Daly City Police Department, just in time to add a few checkpoints during the holiday season, a police sergeant said.

According to Sgt. Michael O'Rourke, the $41,115 grant will allow the department to put on four additional checkpoints and purchase a Globug Balloon Lighting system, which will increase safety with its massive glare-free area lighting.

The grant, awarded through the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) through the UC Berkeley's Safe Transportation Research & Education Center (SafeTREC), is designed solely to combat impaired driving by conducting additional DUI checkpoints, and will assist in efforts already under way to reduce the number of people killed and injured in alcohol and other drug-related collisions in the community, O'Rourke said.

Through the grant, the Daly City Police Department has only to conduct the checkpoint and report its numbers and conditions to UC Berkeley for its data collection. Any arrests or violations resulting from the checkpoints, however, are prosecuted and handled accordingly.

As the holiday season approaches and San Mateo County's Avoid the 23 countywide drunken driving season commences, Daly City plans to hold its four additional checkpoints, beginning with its first one on Dec. 14 and continuing through Jan. 1, according to O'Rourke.

"This let's us put on the checkpoints and show people that we are out there checking - it sends a clear message that we aren't letting up on impaired drivers," O'Rourke said.

Drunk and drugged driving are among America's deadliest crimes, according to statistics provided by the California Office of Traffic Safety. In 2011, 774 people were killed and over 24,000 injured in alcohol and drug-impaired crashes in California.

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