For only the third time in 22 years, nobody in Santa Clara County was killed by a drunken driver during last year's holiday season.
Police are aiming at the same target this year as they begin Avoid the 13, their annual 20-day holiday DUI crackdown, at one minute past midnight Fri., Dec. 13.
The crackdown will include eight sobriety checkpoints, along with two nights of high-intensity strike teams, increased patrol on city streets, maximum freeway enforcement by the California Highway Patrol and an intensive public education campaign.
The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety will allocate overtime hours and assign up to six additional officers to DUI enforcement each night of the Avoid the 13 campaign, according to Lt. Ron Dalba.
In addition, booking officers will be used to facilitate enforcement units returning to active patrol as soon as possible after each arrest.
During 1995's Avoid the 13 campaign, Sunnyvale police made 122 DUI arrests--nearly twice the total for the previous year. Honors were awarded to Sunnyvale officers George McClosky with 13 arrests, Dayton Pan with 11 arrests, and Todd Hearn with 10 arrests.
Law-enforcement officers expect to snap the handcuffs onto more than 1,000 people on suspicion of driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. They arrested 908 DUI suspects during last year's campaign.
Combined with its spin-off Avoid the 23 campaign in San Mateo County, the two campaigns present a solid wall of 3,682 officers from 40 departments stretching from Daly City to Gilroy.
"We will not cut one inch of slack for anyone we pull over on suspicion of driving while under the influence because they are such a menace," said Chief Mike Maehler of Mountain View, Avoid the 13 chairman.
Arrests were up 29 percent in Santa Clara County last year, near the campaign's 22-year average.
Alpha Cab Co. of San Jose will offer free rides home on Fri., Dec. 14, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve in the central section of Santa Clara County for people who question their own sobriety. Hours are 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. The telephone number is 271-7700. Alpha Cab gave 988 rides last year.
Checkpoint Dates
*Dec. 13 and 14: Friday checkpoints are planned in Campbell and Gilroy. Saturday checkpoints are set for Morgan Hill and San Jose.
*Dec. 20 and 21: Los Altos and Palo Alto police will hold checkpoints on Friday night. Avoid the 13 has set an All-County Strike Team for Saturday night. Forty officers from a dozen jurisdictions will fan out all over Santa Clara County in search of drunken drivers, said organizer Officer Dave Flohr of the Palo Alto Police Dept.
*Dec. 27 and 28: Daly City and San Jose police will run a checkpoint on Friday night with a Saturday checkpoint by Morgan Hill police. Avoid the 13's All-County Strike Team operates again on Saturday night.
Avoid the 13 retains its classic poster, which features shoulder patches from each department with the headline "Thirteen Places Where the Bars Stay Open All Night." The poster has also been copied and is requested by police officers from all over the United States. It was designed by Winston Advertising of Santa Clara.
Avoid the 13 runs an intensive news bureau, which has won 11 regional and national public relations awards.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, December 11, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.