More DUI Arrests Than Last Year's Holiday Season in Sonoma County, But No Fatal Crashes

By Bay City News Service

There were 154 DUI arrests during the Sonoma County Avoid the 13 campaign between Dec. 13 and Jan. 1, a police sergeant said.

There were 144 DUI arrests during the same period last year, Petaluma police Sgt. Ken Savano said. 

The 2013 figures include eight alcohol-involved collisions that injured 11 people, Savano said. Last year five alcohol-involved collisions injured six people during the winter holiday period.

"Injury collisions during the winter holiday campaign remain 66 percent below the 2008 level when 24 injury collisions occurred in the same period," Savano said.

There were no alcohol-related collision deaths in Sonoma County in the 2013 holiday period.

"In the last six years, alcohol involved fatal and injury collisions have been reduced by 75 percent annually countywide," Savano said.

There were 964 DUI arrests and five fatal DUI collisions that killed five people during the winter holiday enforcement periods between 2008 and 2013, Savano said. The 57 collisions involving alcohol injured 63 people during that span, Savano said.

The "significant" number of DUI arrests in the most recent holiday enforcement were made at sobriety checkpoints, special saturation patrols and routine patrols in the county, Savano said.

Savano, who has in the Petaluma Police Department's traffic division for six years, said he was assigned to the patrol division on Thursday.

"With this mandatory change in assignment, I am regrettably no longer the Avoid the 13 DUI Task Force coordinator for Sonoma County," Savano said.

Savano said the 70 percent, annual, countywide reduction of alcohol and drug related fatal and injury collisions since 2008 "is a major shift in how the public thinks about DUI in our county."

Sgt. Jim Stephenson will be the new traffic sergeant and Avoid the 13 task force coordinator, Savano said.

There will be more Avoid the 13 DUI operations in the county and region during during Super Bowl Sunday Feb. 2 and on St Patrick's Day on March 17, Savano said.

Copyright © 2013 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.

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