Officials call for safe holiday travel

COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Standing in front of a crumpled Ford Escort, local law enforcement officials and Assemblyman Pedro Nava gravely urged holiday travelers to refrain from getting behind the wheel of a vehicle after drinking or taking drugs.
The message came a day after a fatal accident on Highway 101 that left a 20-year-old woman dead, an 11-year CHP motorcycle officer hospitalized and a 20-year-old Paso Robles man locked in Ventura County Jail facing felony DUI charges.

“Lets hope what happened yesterday is a sobering event, with the emphasis on sobering,” Nava said. “The fallout from this kind of an accident is more profound than people can imagine. It’s hard to come back from this type of a tragedy.”
Nationwide, Nava said 42,642 people died in alcohol-related vehicle accidents in 2006, just 16,000 less than died during the Vietnam War.
“That’s not a problem, ladies and gentleman, that’s an epidemic,” Nava said.
According to statistics presented by Jeff Sgobba, commander of the Santa Barbara area CHP, the number of DUI arrests and DUI collisions on Highway 101 between Gaviota and Carpinteria and much of Highway 154 have increased in 2007.
In 2006, he said, 527 DUI arrests were made locally through the end of November, while 2007 has seen 593 – a 12.5 percent increase. DUI collisions have increased to 135 this year over 124 last year. Statewide, the increases are much sharper, with 35,966 DUI collisions in 2005 and 37,981 in 2006.
Sgobba said they aren’t the kind of numbers he likes to see – ideally they would all be zeros – but he said the increases could be linked to a number of things including weather and the price of gasoline.
Despite the growing statistics, Sgobba and Nava said the goal moving forward is to prevent similar accidents from occurring.
“It’s everyone’s standing here’s goal not to be standing here next year,” Sgobba said.
In order to help prevent accidents this holiday season, Sgobba said the CHP will step up its presence during two “maximum enforcement periods,” one prior to Christmas and another before New Year’s Eve.
In the City of Goleta, Sgt. Greg Nordyke of the Sheriff’s Department said a DUI checkpoint will be held this weekend. He said more DUI checkpoints will be held in Goleta in the near future thanks to a $48,000 grant from the state’s Office of Traffic Safety.
But while law enforcement’s presence on the streets and highways will continue to increase, a larger part of the puzzle is making better individual choices, which Sgobba said are as simple as not stepping behind the wheel after drinking alcohol.
When one does drive after drinking, Nava, a former deputy district attorney for Fresno and Santa Barbara Counties, said it’s not only the drunk that may get hurt, but also innocent families.
“I’ve seen the tragedy and chaos that follows drinking and driving,” Nava said. “Drinking and driving breaks families apart.
“I’ve prosecuted more DUIs than I care to remember.”
Sgobba said the No. 1 thing people can do to prevent accidents is designate a driver, refrain from driving while tired and call 911 after spotting a person driving dangerously.
The reality of Wednesday’s tragic accident was put into perspective by Deputy Win Smith, who directs the countywide Avoid the 12 program that pools the resources of the 12 local law enforcement agencies to help combat drunken driving, noted that fatal, alcohol-related collisions occur several times each day in this state.
“It’s particularly sad during the holiday season,” he said. “What is even more tragic is it’s absolutely preventable.”