The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is readying to ramp up patrols this evening in an effort directed at identifying and apprehending drivers under the influence of alcohol and drugs. According to the department, officers detailed to the DUI saturation patrol will be actively monitoring the streets from 7 P.M. to 3 A.M. today as part of a nationally coordinated effort by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to enforce sober driving during the holiday season.
The initiative, known as “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over,” aims to deter impaired driving and actively remove potential threats from the road when celebrations could easily turn to strife. Statistics from the NHTSA, as revealed in the SFPD’s news release, have shown that drunk-driving crashes could be reduced by up to 20 percent when DUI checkpoints and high-visibility patrols are continually executed.
The SFPD has also flagged that officers will be vigilantly looking for signs of impairment from both alcohol and drugs. Those suspected of drug-impaired driving will be evaluated by officers who are specially trained for this purpose. This enhanced scrutiny comes on the heels of recent statistics indicating that 30 percent of drivers in fatal crashes were found to have drugs in their system…