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Published on 12/07/1998 All articles from this issue

'Avoid the 13' police officers target holiday drunk drivers

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

Los Altos police officers are joining with colleagues throughout Santa Clara County for the 17-day "Avoid the 13" holiday crackdown on drunk drivers that begins this Friday.

Los Altos officers will staff a checkpoint in town at the corner of San Antonio Road and Hawthorne Avenue from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Friday, said Los Altos Sgt. Ron Vierra. Mountain View and Palo Alto officers will be helping with the checkpoint.

"Avoid the 13" is a program of "education as well as enforcement," Vierra said.

When the program began 25 years ago, with the 13 law enforcement agencies in Santa Clara County, Vierra was a patrolman, and he made some of the first arrests.

"Absolutely, it's a good program," Vierra said, for deterring drinking and driving.

Los Altos will also have four officers as part of the 20-officer North County Strike Team that will focus on Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Stanford University, Vierra said.

The strike team will be in search of DUI suspects from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Dec. 23.

In addition, Los Altos will field 66 hours of overtime, primarily on weekends, and will adjust hours and assign additional beats, said Jan Ford, public information director for the "Avoid the 13" campaign.

Los Altos will help Mountain View officers hold their first-ever checkpoint on Jan. 2, most likely on California Street, Vierra said.

Officers throughout the county hope to extend their three-year winning streak of no DUI deaths, Ford said.

Throughout the county, there will be nine road-side sobriety checkpoints, 1,755 hours of police overtime, a North County high-intensity regional patrol, eight days of maximum freeway enforcement, extra city street patrols and DUI emphasis with officers on regular beats, Ford said.

Alameda and San Mateo counties will be sponsoring similar DUI crackdowns.

Last year Los Altos officers snapped the cuffs on 18 charged with DUI.

"We get the ones off the road who haven't a clue," Vierra said. "When we arrest them, we say, 'You're supposed to avoid the 13. You've avoided 12 of them.'"