NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – In the battle against driving under the influence, the California Highway Patrol said this week that it has successfully completed a yearlong campaign thanks to a federal grant.

The goal of the statewide “Border to Border II DUI Enforcement Program” was to reduce the number of alcohol-involved fatal and injury collisions in California through enhanced enforcement and a public awareness campaign.

“DUI is an ongoing problem that potentially impacts all of us,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “It is a dangerous behavior that results in hundreds of people being killed or severely injured every year.”

Preliminary statistics from the CHP’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System indicate there were 467 fatal collisions in California in 2010 that were a result of DUI; 534 people were killed in those collisions.

Those numbers are roughly a 25-percent reduction in people killed by DUI drivers from the previous year, the CHP reported.

The grant activity began in October 2010 with the intention of continuing to reduce DUI-related collisions and victims by educating drivers about the dangers of drinking and driving, removing impaired drivers from the road and stopping these motorists from getting behind the wheel in the first place.

CHP officers conducted more than 240 sobriety checkpoint operations and 100 DUI task force operations; more than 45,000 hours were used for proactive DUI enforcement patrols. The efforts resulted in more than 2,000 DUI arrests.

Final collision figures from the Border-to-Border grant period will not be available until next year, the CHP said.

“Drinking and driving is never a good idea,” said Commissioner Farrow. “Always designate a driver who hasn’t had anything to drink at all; not the person who has had the least to drink. Drinking, then getting behind the wheel, can have serious consequences.”

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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