AnonymousSource: Santa Maria Police Department
No drivers were arrested for DUI while conducting a DUI checkpoint on July 30th, 2021.
The checkpoint was held at the 1300 block of south Broadway from 6:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. The checkpoint was shut down early due the traffic unit responding to assist investigation in a fatal traffic collision.
6 drivers were cited for operating a vehicle unlicensed or with a suspended/revoked license, 166 vehicles were screened. No other drivers were arrested.
Checkpoint locations are based on a history of crashes and DUI arrests. The primary purpose of checkpoints is not to make arrests, but to promote public safety by deterring drivers from driving impaired.
The Santa Maria Police Department will hold another DUI/Driver’s License checkpoint in the upcoming months.
Funding for this checkpoint was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Regarding the fatal traffic collision, it involved a motorcyclist traveling southbound on Broadway road at a high rate of speed, failed to stop at the red light at McCoy and Broadway, and broadsided a car making a turn onto McCoy from Broadway with a green arrow signal. The collision caused the car to turn on its side. The motorcyclist was declared dead on scene and the driver of the car was uninjured.
The motorcyclist was an adult male and the driver of the car was an juvenile female.
6 DUI arrests is quite a high number it seems for a single night of a DUI checkpoint. Hopefully this arrest news of six drivers having to fightDUIcharges now in court, will serve as a reminder and deterrent to people not to risk drinking and driving in the first place. It’s just not worth it with Uber and Lyft available.
It would also be nice to get all unlicensed drivers off the road.
This just goes on and on. These checkpoints are absurd. 6 people cited for infractions while 166 people were “screened’! That is an police state rationale for denying people freedom of travel and conditioning them to the idea that police can impose their will at random. I have to believe that on any given night the force dedicated to this would have done a whole lot more good if they were just on patrol. The only reason this is done is to get the “grant” which is another absurd idea–just give the money to local LE and let them decide what is a priority in their community.
DUI checkpoints are effective deterrents.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15276922/
6:36 pm–‘effective deterrents’ do not override the Bill of Rights. Otherwise we could have coerced confessions, search without probable cause, home invasion raids, denial of counsel, denial of jury, denial of appeal. All these things would deter I guess, but we have a national belief that personal liberty must be protected and a national aversion to a police state.
Except – nobody’s rights are being violated by DUI checkpoints.
1:44 p.m.–the rights of passengers in 166 vehicles were violated. How can that not be obvious. People have the right to travel unimpeded unless they are observed by the police to be in violation of the law. This is not the case here. Not one of these people were observed to be in violation of any law when detained and interrogated and searched.
The law courts say otherwise.