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StumbleOfficials plan ‘unprecedented’ efforts to catch impaired drivers
Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010 | 3:08 p.m.
Sun Coverage
Motorists will see sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols as part of a search for drivers who are under the influence of drugs and alcohol over the Labor Day weekend, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
Eight law enforcement agencies are working together to have extra patrols throughout Clark County, while two checkpoints are planned for Las Vegas, one will be in North Las Vegas and another will be in Henderson.
“This is really unprecedented. I can’t imagine a community in this country that’s cooperated and collaborated to this degree in a city this size,” said Nevada Highway Patrol Maj. Kevin Tice, who oversees the agency’s Southern Command.
Authorities with the Highway Patrol, and Metro, Henderson, North Las Vegas, Boulder City and Mesquite police departments will be working together and will be joined by officers from the National Park Service, and Lincoln and Nye counties, officials said.
“We’ve come a long way. We used to operate as individual entities … and now we’ve come together regionally in a collaborative effort,” said Henderson Police Capt. Patrick Moers. “We’re all fighting the same violation, we’re all on the same page with everything we do now.”
The checkpoints in Las Vegas will be at Charleston Boulevard and Atlantic Street, near Fremont Street and Eastern Avenue in the eastern part of the city, and at Charleston Boulevard and Jones on the western side of the valley.
A checkpoint in Henderson will be on St. Rose Parkway between Eastern Avenue and Jeffreys Street in front of St. Rose Dominican Hospital – Siena Campus.
The North Las Vegas checkpoint will be on Civic Center Drive between Lake Mead Boulevard and Carey Avenue, near Las Vegas Boulevard.
All four checkpoints will be from 7 p.m. Saturday to 3 a.m. Sunday.
There also will be extra patrols around the county looking for drunken drivers throughout the weekend.
Boulder City Police Chief Thomas Finn said his department will be working closely with officers from the National Park Service to patrol U.S. 93, with a focus on boaters leaving Lake Mead.
Finn said he is a strong supporter of DUI enforcement efforts; during a Labor Day weekend several years ago, he was riding a motorcycle when a drunken driver hit him from behind.
“To this day, I still carry the scars and the wounds from that,” he said. “But it also gave me something to concentrate on in my law enforcement career, and for 30 years, this has been a priority.”
Labor Day weekend is the second deadliest holiday for motorists, said Gina Espinosa-Salcedo from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Most of those deaths are young men, who are particularly likely to drink and drive, she said.
She also knows personally how tragic it can be; a drunken driver hit her brother and mother a couple of years ago, she said.
The number of people who die from crashes involving DUI drivers is falling in Clark County, partially a result of an increase in enforcement since 2006, said John Johansen from the state Office of Traffic Safety.
In 2006, there were 282 traffic fatalities in the county, and 126, or 45 percent, included a drunken driver, he said.
Last year, there were 144 fatalities in Clark County, a 29 percent reduction in four years. That year, there were 72 alcohol-related deaths on county roads, a 43 percent reduction.
During the Labor Day weekend, the county had seven fatal accidents in 2006 but has had none since on the holiday.
“We strongly support checkpoints and saturation patrols as we believe that they are an effective means of deterrence and apprehension,” said Sandy Heverly, the executive director of Stop DUI, who is also the victim of a crash involving a drunken driver. “As victims we often think, ‘If only, if only there had been a checkpoint or saturation patrol, if only.’ ”
Frank and Linda Peterson know the feeling. Their daughter, Angela, was killed by a drunken driver last November.
“There’s nothing good about this,” Frank Peterson said. “This is hard. I’m a Navy man, I ride Harleys, I’ve smashed thumbs, I’ve broken legs, I’ve busted my head open, but none of that can compare to anything that this does to you. My only daughter is gone and there’s nothing else you can do other than … try to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
After she died, Frank Peterson made a promise to his daughter, who was a semester away from graduating from UNLV, that he would try to prevent more people from needlessly dying.
If there was a checkpoint that night, his daughter might still be alive, he said.
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Good. Nothing worse than impaired drivers on the road killing innocent people.
It's not difficult. Have one drink and enjoy yourself. Beyond that make sure you know your limits. Not sure, don't drive.
I applaud the police for their effort. The problem is what happens next week. The first business day after the holiday the drunk will call the DMV Adminstrative Hearings Office and in accordance with Nevada Revised Statutes request a hearing in front of an Admistrative Judge contesting the arrest. This will stop any action until the hearing, meantime the drunk will get a temporary drivers license. If the drunk loses the hearing he will surrender his drivers license. In 30 days the drunk will apply for a hardship license in writing allowing him to drive to and from work (not all requests are approved). On day 46 after serving half of the revocation the drunk will go to DMV with his SR-22, take the written test and pay about $170.00 and walk out with a restricted (to and from work) drivers license. Their are so many requests for restricted drivers licenses that DMV has one full time person who does this 5 days a week 8 hrs a day. I think its time to amend the law.
There are still 11 States that respect the constitution!
http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/...
Your papers please!
Studies have shown that it is more effective to put the same amount of manpower on the streets instead of at checkpoints but the checkpoints get media attention. I'd much prefer to have the drunks off the streets instead of hearing about enforcement efforts through the media.
Well, hell...
It's either the drunks on the road killing Sin City citizens or members of the LVMPD gunning them down in cold blood. Whichever way ya dies, yer sitll deader'n Juluis Caesar.
mjrb, tell me how you are protected by the constitution to operate a vehicle on a public highway while impaired? It seems as though that the people who do this are violating my rights to free and safe travel. I respect a state which allows the identification, detention, and prosecution of those who endanger us. You will look real smart in your grave holding on to that constitutional right while the impaired driver continues to drive, as described in another post.
If you drink take a cab or bus home it cheaper
than a DUI or hurting someone.
Manlaw: it's not the right of the impaired driver that's at question. Most everyone who is opposed to checkpoints are NOT opposed to catching impaired drivers. We're simply against the stopping of INNOCENT drivers who have committed no infractions, and who are not impaired.
Also, more to the point, as others have stated, the same manpower dedicated to patrols is far more effective than checkpoints. Some estimates are they are as much as 300% more effective! So why continue to jeopardize the lives of the innocent people out there by taking police officers off the street and instead setting them up at some checkpoint?
tim:
if you are innocent, what's the problem? a checkpoint only takes a few minutes to pass through.
i do agree that the checkpoints are somewhat a waste of resources but they also help to catch unlicensed and uninsured motorists.
also, remember that driving is not a right. it is a privilege.
cch89148: The problem is when an innocent person is detained, against his will, for one second, that is a slap in the face of freedom. Our country fought a war more than 200 years ago to secure the basic right for innocent people to be secure from government intrusion.
The question I always ask people is who gets to decide which of my rights go away, and which do I get to keep? Rights that may be important to you may not make a difference to me, just like the detention of innocent people bothers me, but you don't care because it's a minor "few minutes".
Basic human rights can be voted away, or otherwise taken slowly from us, merely because the majority of people don't have a vested interest in any particular issue. Unfortunately, when we all subscribe to this complacency, one day when you find something you DO care about being taken from us, there's nothing you can do because the rest of us just don't care.
To: My fellow bloggers.
DUI is a crime that affects all of us one way or the other. DUI affects you in the pocket book in many ways directly or indirectly through higer taxes to pay for emergency services, highter insurance rates, court costs etc, etc.
DUI affects you personally. You just haven't lived until you've directly become a victim or a victim survivor of a lousy DUI collision. Please notice that I didn't use the word "Accident", because use of the word "Accident", implies nobody is at fault. The crime of DUI involves somebody at fault.
My thanks and many thanks to all of you that support this effort to combat DUI.
Just an old cop reflecting,
Gordon Martines
President of STOP DUI INC.
GordonMartines:
I protest these checkpoints. I always do and I always will. I want to see DUI offenders captured for their crimes, but I want it done without checkpoints. Patrols are more effective and they don't intrude upon the civil liberties of sober drivers.
I will video tape each and every error in police procedure, policy, or law, and I will provide that video evidence to any defendant accused of DUI at one of the checkpoints, free of charge. Not only are checkpoints ineffective at finding impaired drivers, they're even less effective because most of the offenders are having their charges dismissed because of police mistakes. Maybe police will get the clue that checkpoints don't work, and stop doing them in favor of methods proven to capture more impaired drivers.
Like I said, I support capturing and prosecuting DUI offenders. In that regard, we are on the same side. But I won't tolerate checkpoints, no matter the reason.