HBPD plans DUI checkpoint for Friday

The Huntington Beach Police Department Traffic Unit will be conducting a DUI/Drivers License Checkpoint on Friday, May 19, 2017, within the city limits, between the hours of 7 p.m. and 3 a.m.

In recent years, California has seen a disturbing increase in drug-impaired driving crashes. Huntington Beach PD supports the new effort from the Office of Traffic Safety that aims to educate all drivers that “DUI Doesn’t Just Mean Booze.” If you take prescription drugs, particularly those with a driving or operating machinery warning on the label, you might be impaired enough to get a DUI. Marijuana can also be impairing, especially in combination with alcohol or other drugs, and can result in a DUI.

The deterrent effect of High Visibility Enforcement using both DUI checkpoints and DUI Saturation Patrols has proven to lower the number of persons killed and injured in alcohol or drug impaired crashes. Research shows that crashes involving an impaired driver can be reduced by up to 20 percent when well-publicized proactive DUI operations are conducted routinely.

In California, alcohol involved collisions led to 1,155 deaths and nearly 24,000 serious injuries in 2014 because someone failed to designate a sober driver. Over the course of the past three years Huntington Beach PD officers have investigated 384 DUI collisions which have claimed 11 lives and resulted in another 555 injuries.

FIVE LOCAL SUPER VOLUNTEERS TO BE HONORED

The 59th Annual Garden Grove Strawberry Festival ‘s 2017 theme is “Honoring Our Local Volunteer Super Heroes.” The board has chosen four outstanding volunteers who have served their communities above and beyond the call.

They will ride with their families in the Saturday, May 28 parade that starts at 10 a.m. at 9^th and Chapman in Garden Grove.   Honorees are Randy Barth, founder and CEO of THINK Together; Peter Carter, a founder of the CHOC Walk fundraiser; Gayle Knight, founder of H.O.P.E. (Helping Others Prepare for Eternity); and Jack Wallin, founding member of the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival, who has served continuously on the board for 59 years.

The festival will be held in the Village Green Park at Euclid and Main streets on Memorial Day Weekend Friday, May 26 through Monday, May 29. Friday hours are 1 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Monday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.  Admission is free.