DUI Checkpoints in Costa Mesa, Brea, La Habra, and Newport Beach Memorial Day Weekend 2009

The Orange County Register shows the following list of Checkpoints for Memorial Day weekend in Orange County.  Here’s a list of  selected checkpoints:

•Newport Beach – 9 p.m. Friday to 3 a.m. Saturday at northbound Dover and 16th streets.

•Costa Mesa – 8 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday at northbound Harbor Boulevard at Fair Drive.

•Brea – 8 p.m. Saturday to 2 a.m. Sunday. Brea police did not disclose the location.

•La Habra – 9 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday at La Habra Boulevard and Euclid Street.

“Memorial Day travel by Southern Californians is expected to drop by 2.3 percent to just over 2.5 million trips this year – yet another sign of the harsh economic times, travel experts say.

As more people are expected to stay in town, local police are gearing up to combat drinking and driving on local roads.

Anaheim police Sgt. Rick Martinez, who coordinates DUI enforcement efforts in the county, said that while it’s difficult to quantify, “it seems that people are inclined to stay closer to home, go to people’s homes or establishments, and get behind the wheel after they’ve been drinking.”

Police departments throughout the county will be mounting sobriety patrols, as they routinely do for holiday weekends.

If you plan on sticking around for local festivities, make sure to have a designated driver. Driving under the influence checkpoints will be held in cities including Newport Beach, Lake Forest, Costa Mesa, Brea, and La Habra, police say.

Here’s a list of a selected checkpoints:

•Newport Beach – 9 p.m. Friday to 3 a.m. Saturday at northbound Dover and 16th streets.

•Costa Mesa – 8 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday at northbound Harbor Boulevard at Fair Drive.

•Brea – 8 p.m. Saturday to 2 a.m. Sunday. Brea police did not disclose the location.

•La Habra – 9 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday at La Habra Boulevard and Euclid Street.

While Southern Californians are planning fewer out-of-town trips this year, that’s not the case nationwide.

Nationally, travel this weekend is projected to increase slightly – by 1.5 percent, a trend that reflects a significant drop in gas prices compared to 2008 when the cost for fuel was at an all-time high, nearing $4 a gallon.

Just over 2 million local travelers will drive to their destinations, about a 2.1 percent decrease from the previous year, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Travel by air by local folks is expected to drop even more significantly – by nearly 6 percent to 213,000 Southern Californians.

“The economic downturn is affecting California more acutely than many other parts of the country, and the state’s double-digit unemployment has without a doubt pushed down the number of holiday travelers,” says Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for the Auto Club.

For all you road trippers, keep in mind that gas prices throughout the state continue to rise in anticipation of a spike in car travel during the summer months.

As of Thursday, the average cost for a gallon of regular in Orange County was $2.57 – a 5 cent jump from Monday and up by a quarter from a month ago.

Top local travel destinations remain the same as for most other holidays: Las Vegas, San Diego, San Francisco, Arizona and California’s Central Coast between Santa Barbara and Monterey.

Friday and Monday are expected to be the heaviest air travel days, according the John Wayne Airport officials.

Traffic will be a bit congested at the airport because of construction just south of Terminal B. A map of the impacted area is available at ocair.com.”

Related articles by Zemanta

• Memorial Day travel down in SoCal, says AAA (ocbiz.freedomblogging.com)
• Virgin America launches Orange County service (gadling.com)
• JWA’s April passenger traffic down – again (ocbiz.freedomblogging.com)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Dui Checkpoints, DUI News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.