Sheriff cracks down on DUIs

Pima County Sheriff’s officers have been busy setting up sobriety checkpoints aimed at keeping drunk drivers off the road this holiday season.

By New Year's Day, 30 sobriety checkpoints will have been conducted throughout Southern Arizona, said Sgt. Doug Hanna of the Southern Arizona DUI Task Force.

Since late November, more than 1,700 DUI arrests have been made throughout Arizona by officer’s assigned to a statewide holiday crackdown, though the main objective of the checkpoints is to act as a deterrent, said Hanna.

“They’re really there to increase our visibility, educate the public and keep impaired drivers off the streets, rather than to facilitate arrests.”

Sobriety checkpoints are usually set up in Green Valley and Sahuarita about once a year, said Hanna, but there hasn’t been a checkpoint along Interstate 19 since 1999.

“If the Arizona Department of Public Safety asks us to assist with a checkpoint, we’ll help, but the highways are their jurisdiction,” said Hanna.

However, the U.S. Border Patrol does assist in detaining impaired drivers at its 1-19 checkpoint in Amado, said Robert Daniels, public information officer for the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector.

“If Border Patrol agents see a driver unfit to drive, we’ll certainly stop them and call in the Department of Public Safety,” he said.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration records show that in 2006, Arizona had the sixth-highest number of alcohol-related fatalities in the nation.

There were 585 alcohol-related fatalities statewide, up 15 percent from 2005.

jrichardson@gvnews.com | 547-9726