A sober New Year

— Rollie Atkinson
As the New Year arrived, many of us found ourselves held up in
long lines while law officers painstakingly filed us through
checkpoints, holding up our holiday travels — all for our own good
and safety, so we were told.
No, we’re not talking about the long snaking lines through the
nation’s airport terminals brought on by the attempted terrorist
bombing on Christmas Day. We’re talking about the local countywide
sobriety road stops that thousands of us experienced as part of the
annual “Avoid the 13” program.
It’s always a good thing when the minor disruption we experience
for our own good turns out to be just that. This year’s local law
enforcement effort resulted in zero drunk-driving fatalities on
Sonoma County roads and “just” 10 DUI-related injuries.
The 13 local law enforcement agencies of the Sonoma County DUI
Task Force made 230 arrests during the 17-day campaign, the most
ever in the program’s eight year history. One of the end results
was that all of us and our loved ones completed our holiday visits
and errands in safety, if at the cost of some of us being detained
at the four major sobriety check points.
We have not ended the social problem of drunk driving as we can
tell from a year-long series of tragic newspaper headlines from
last year, including two where entire families in Windsor and
Sonoma were killed by a single drunk driver.
The roadside vigil and the strict enforcement of drunk driving
laws must continue as we also continue educational and community
awareness programs in our schools, courts and communities.
As Staff Writer Nathan Wright reports in today’s newspaper,
efforts against driving drunk will increase in 2010 with a new
pilot program that will require first time DUI offenders to install
special devices in their cars that require the driver to blow into
them — alcohol free — before the car will start.
Incidents of drunk driving — and the social acceptance of it —
has greatly improved over recent times. We can make tougher laws
and more severe penalties, but it still takes a good friend to not
let someone drive under the influence. Stopping someone from
drinking and driving before they get behind the wheel is guaranteed
to save someone’s life. Not stopping someone is putting everyone on
the road in danger.
“Over the limit, under arrest,” is the slogan for the national
DUI campaign. The local Avoid the 13 program is conducted four
times a year and is funded by a special grant from the state Office
of Traffic Safety. Besides the checkpoints, law enforcement teams
deployed DUI roving patrols, served arrest warrants for DUI
offenders, staked out habitual DUI offenders, and conducted
compliance checks of DUI probationers and parolees.
Another startling headline from last year’s newspapers was the
number of habitual DUI offenders who are still allowed behind the
wheel and who caused several fatal and tragic accidents in Sonoma
County last year.
A better effort to coordinate the authority of law agencies, the
courts and the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles is being
launched with the new year. The more repeat offenders we can keep
off the road, the better. With continued reductions in DUI arrests
and incidents, perhaps more of us can enjoy holiday driving without
too many annoying sobriety checkpoints.
We understand the vital importance of national security at our
airports, causing us to stand in line for an hour, removing our
shoes and now being full-body searched. International terrorism is
beyond everyone’s control and it’s threat forces us to yield some
of our personal freedoms.
Driving home from work or to the store should be different. But
it will take more friends taking away someone’s car keys for that
to happen. We can make more laws, but they have to be obeyed.