Regional
Grass Valley Police Department Receives Grant For County-Wide DUI Enforcement Campaign
Author: Grass Valley Police Department
Published on Dec 8, 2009 - 9:15:48 AM

GRASS VALLEY, Calif. December 8, 2009 - Building on the successes achieved in recent years, the 'Avoid the 5' DUI taskforce will be bringing more traffic enforcement to Nevada County. Special DUI enforcement campaigns will continue as a result of a recent $282,000 grant awarded by the California Office of Traffic Safety to the Grass Valley Police Department. The Grass Valley Police Department will administer the grant for the entire county. Law enforcement in Nevada County is dedicated to keeping our roadways safe through both enforcement and education.

The 'Avoid the 5' DUI Campaign is named to send the message that if you don't drink and drive, you will avoid getting arrested by any of the 5 participating law enforcement agencies in the county. The Avoid grant will continue to aid all county law enforcement agencies in their community efforts to deal with traffic safety problems and reduce the number of persons killed and injured in traffic collisions attributed to impaired drivers.

The grant activities will specifically target those who drink too much and get behind the wheel. Officers will be staffing DUI/Driver License Checkpoints and will join together in multi-agency DUI Task Force deployments into different cities with DUI saturation patrols searching for drunk drivers. This grant also funds local DUI saturation patrols for each partnering city to address problem areas with identified DUI issues. Additionally, funding will target 'worst of the worst' repeat DUI offenders with Warrant/Probation Sweeps searching for those in violation of court orders and those who have not appeared in court on past DUI arrests.

The grant provides funding for officer overtime to conduct the above listed special enforcement activities.

"The Avoid taskforces have played an integral role in the recent reductions in alcohol-related and other deaths on our roadways, lowering alcohol impaired deaths by more than 20 percent in the last three years in California," said Christopher J. Murphy, Director of the Office of Traffic Safety. "This grant will help make Grass Valley and Nevada County a safer place to live and work."

Funding for the grant comes from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Agencies participating in the 'Avoid the 5' taskforce include:

• Grass Valley Police Department
• Nevada City Police Department
• Truckee Police Department
• Nevada County Sheriff Department
• California Highway Patrol

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