$65,000 Grant To Target Humboldt County’s DUI Drivers

Press release from the Fortuna Police Department:

AVOIDDrunk and drugged driving remains the number one killer on our roadways, with 1,197 alcohol involved deaths and over 23,000 injuries reported statewide in 2013. The “Avoid the 8” DUI Task Force is now the “Avoid the 10” DUI Task Force and will be combating this deadly problem through DUI enforcement efforts in Humboldt County. Fortuna Police Department will be administering a recent $65,000.00 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety for the entire county.

“We are excited to be continuing this program in Humboldt County and we are very pleased that we able to add the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department and the Humboldt County Probation Department to the Program” said Task Force Coordinator Sgt. Charles Ellebrecht.

The “Avoid the 10” DUI Task Force is named to send the message that if you don’t drink or use drugs and drive, you will avoid getting arrested by any of the 10 participating law enforcement agencies in the county.

The grant activities will specifically target those who get behind the wheel after drinking too much or using drugs that impair driving. Officers from law enforcement agencies across the county will jointly staff DUI/Driver License Checkpoints and roving DUI saturation patrols. Additionally, funding will target the ‘worst of the worst’ repeat DUI offenders with Warrant/Probation Sweeps and Court Sting Enforcement Operations focusing on DUI offenders with suspend licenses who drive from court hearings after being ordered not to by a judge.

“Overall, California’s roadways are among the safest in the nation,” said OTS Director Rhonda Craft. “But to meet future mobility, safety, and accessible transportation objectives, we have to reverse this recent trend in order to reach our common goal – zero deaths on our roadways. The Office of Traffic Safety and the Avoid DUI Task Force want to work with everyone to create a culture of traffic safety across Humboldt County and the state.”

Motorists can expect to see special DUI campaigns during the winter and summer holiday periods as well as on Halloween, Super Bowl Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo and during local special events with identified DUI Problems. Funding for the grant comes from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Agencies participating in the ‘Avoid the 10’ taskforce include:

• Arcata Police Department
• California Highway Patrol
• Eureka Police Department
• Ferndale Police Department
• Fortuna Police Department
• Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office
• Humboldt County Probation Department
• Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department
• Humboldt State University Police Department
• Rio Dell Police Department

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18 Comments
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Safe driver
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Safe driver
8 years ago

Velcom du Amerika . Papers please ….

clearlake fool
Guest
clearlake fool
8 years ago

guess i should ” TRY ” to drive sober this upcoming holiday season when visiting mom
actually , i do try but sometimes an OOPS happens

Cody
Guest
Cody
8 years ago

DUI check point is fine but why do I need to show my driver license? Feels a little like “Papers Please” Happy to show when I get pulled over but an ID checkpoint is a little lame.

Shake
Guest
Shake
8 years ago
Reply to  Cody

Google office of traffic safety UN global and you’ll find your answer.
Anything to do with “goal zero” public, can be found at the global UN.
While you’re there, be sure to also check out the new “strong cities network” Loretta lynch is proud of and see who is the new head of the UN civil rights.
Apparently, the UN has taken over, mayor by mayor, sheriff by sheriff, … except in constitutional sheriff counties, of course.

Mr.X
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Mr.X
8 years ago
Reply to  Shake

No such thing as a constitutional sherriff

Bruce Haney, Mike Poindexter…. Maybe they uphold the North Korean Constitution, but they aren’t Americans by any stretch.

Americans don’t earn their livings through coercion, commies do.

Sh
Guest
Sh
8 years ago
Reply to  Mr.X

All sheriffs are elected to stand guard over we the people & protect us from tyranny. Unfortunately, only a handful of sheriffs know this & even fewer people. One has to know the constitution before one knows what tyranny is.

Mr.X
Guest
Mr.X
8 years ago
Reply to  Cody

Just salute with a sig heil and they wave you right on through, no biggie if you speak their language.

Watched it be a lie
Guest
Watched it be a lie
8 years ago

I’ve been loosely following the reports from the DUI checkpoints.
Last time, not ONE person had a DUI.
A handful of people hauled off to jail for other things, but not DUI.
Which is pretty much opposite from how the DUI checkpoint law is supposed to be able to do, from what i’ve read. “that won’t happen. It’s just for DUI, ” the authors and supporters said, and yet….
The time before that, about a dozen folks were hauled off to jail for other things. That time one or two for DUI, and one for public drunkenness, I believe. They wouldn’t let that person walk home.
If they really wanted to get drunk folks, or take preventative steps against DUI, they would set up around arcata’s plaza around closing time. Or around old town during the same time. So the drunks wouldn’t even get in their cars.
Considering the time of day I’ve been reading DUI accidents happening, perhaps in the early morning sometime. One of those accidents had someone blow over a .20.

Watched it be a lie
Guest
Watched it be a lie
8 years ago

Really: a DUI check-point should pretty much only go like this:
Good Evening! Please blow into this.
Fantastic!
Less than a .06!
Have a great night!
( Yes, you can take one of the other options, if you are willing to pull over, and then go off to the testing lab. Between .06 and .08 requires an ID, only to prove over 21-ness, I believe.)

THC
Guest
THC
8 years ago

Yep America, now home to no refusal cheek swabbs and blood draws not to mention constitution free zones. Wouldn’t our grand and great grand paraints( you know, the ones that risked their lives to secure the freedoms we take for granted, piss on and seem to have become scared of) be proud? If we don’t stop this soon it will be to late. And in no way do I endorce driving while impaired but, Some one else’s mistake should not impair or nigate my rights.

Gazoo
Guest
Gazoo
8 years ago

I always wanted to try this but haven’t yet, I don’t drink so it won’t be a problem if they break out the window in case of emergency
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/03/see-this-guy-get-through-a-dui-checkpoint-without-saying-a-word-thanks-to-what-he-hung-out-his-car-window/

Watched it be a lie
Guest
Watched it be a lie
8 years ago
Reply to  Gazoo

Here is where I be a hypocrite: because I believe in the idea that drunken driving is like firing a gun. Way different than merely pointing, or bringing to bear, a gun. It’s not that someone might die; it’s that someone is probably gonna die.
In Ca, one “signs away the right to self-incrimination when it comes to showing that ones blood alcohol content is less than .08 for over 21, and less than .06 for under 21” I believe, when you sign up to get your licence.
I am totally against the idea of “signing a constitutional right away” in every sense of the meaning: 2nd amendment against. Except for this drunk driving thing. Very specifically that. An amendment needs to be added nationally about that. One sentence specifically about just drunk driving.
Yes, I know. Good luck with that.

Shake
Guest
Shake
8 years ago

Guilty until proven innocent checkpoints tie up the force that would otherwise be free to spot & capture those that are driving recklessly.

nines
Guest
8 years ago

Pardon my utopian lapse here, but nobody has a right to tell another adult what they can or cannot put in their own bodies, or how much. We spend trillions of dollars on devising ever more futuristic ways to keep blowing people to pink mist when we could build roads that make traffic accidents impossible.

William F Buckley, Jr. was one of the most insufferable conservatives in my history on this planet, but he advocated vociferously for the legalization of ALL drugs, and anybody who is man enough to set aside their knee-jerk social conditioning for a few moments will realize the man was RIGHT. It would immediately take over 90% of the crime and perfidies out of the drug trade. If you added to that roads that don’t allow accidents, life is good.

It’s a damn INDUSTRY the way we do it. It pays cops and prison personnel. Jobs, jobs, jobs. AND it gives psychopaths the way to fund projects so black they’re not even on the black budget Congress approves. In FACT, everyone trying to be a free lance dope dealer is arrested and put in prison by the real dope dealers, the dope dealers who use our military and intelligence agencies to protect and to move their wares, the ones who protect their own distributors from the accidental busts by local cops, the ones who flood towns with hard drugs and drive good people away while they mop up the zombies and gentrify what was once home to a population of decent and loving rednecks and hippies and hipnecks and loggers and fishermen and dairymen and their mostly happy families.

I have a friend who calls this the “leveraged buyout of communities”. They’re using YOUR money to drive you out of your home and finance their upscale developments and businesses. They use our kids and our cops like levers on a bulldozer, and the more we freak out the better, the more pressure we put on the cops to crack down on us.

And we NEVER fail them. We start getting nasty about the tweakers and the people who tie their dogs outside the bar and the pudding brains who look for things to steal to get their next fix and the armies of vagabond trimmigrants coming because WE made home Mecca for disenfranchised youth.

We don’t take responsibility. We’re so busy holding it together however we might and so vexed and confused by the state of things and so weakened by the plastic food at all the grocery stores and restaurants and the drought and the chaos in the hills, all we can do is vent on people more our own size… or WORSE… those less fortunate.

Just ever spiraling down, even when we’re energetic and loving and doing everything we can to make it good, when the REAL solutions are MUCH bigger than we ever even let ourselves think, and we’re perfectly capable of them if we’d just come untrained and get our heads OUT of this suffocating box.

Mr.X
Guest
Mr.X
8 years ago
Reply to  nines

Land of the free with the world’s largest prison population, and private for profit prisons…

The next world won’t have soul-less demons in uniforms, they’ll be in hell.

Shake
Guest
Shake
8 years ago
Reply to  nines

Well said, Nines. You nailed it.

Gazoo
Guest
Gazoo
8 years ago
Reply to  nines

Best comment in a long time, thanks for the share

Oh noooooo
Guest
Oh noooooo
8 years ago

With all these checkpoints it’s going to be a dull thanksgiving for me not being able to get sauced. Damn it!