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Our Long Beach DUI Lawyers have received a hot tip from the Los Angeles Police Department of Los Angeles DUI Checkpoint Locations.

When: Friday, April 15, 2011, 8 p.m. to Saturday, April 16, 2011, 3 a.m.
Where: Santa Monica Boulevard and Bronson Avenue
Who: Officers from West Traffic Division and Hollywood Area will staff the checkpoint.

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Our Newport Beach DUI lawyers have learned that the Traffic Division of the Newport Beach Police Department will be conducting a sobriety/driver’s license checkpoint on Friday, April 8, 2011.

The location of the checkpoint will be northbound Jamboree Road at Santa Barbara Drive.

The approximate hours of operation will be from 9:00 p.m. until 3:00 a.m.

The checkpoint location was selected based upon its proximity to bars and restaurants and provides a high degree of visibility to the motoring public.  Be careful out there.

State-funded sobriety checkpoints during the holidays nearly doubled last year, to 1,050. That combined with non-holiday checkpoints for a total of about 2,500 such operations, according to the investigation.

A total of 17,419 vehicles were impounded, with a rough estimate that 70 percent of those belonged to unlicensed illegal immigrants. Under state law, motorists who don’t have a license or who have had their driving privileges suspended or revoked can have their cars impounded for 30 days.

“Local governments often charge unlicensed drivers a fine to get their vehicles released from impound – on average more than $150, finance records show. Cities, increasingly, also get a cut of the fees that tow operators charge vehicle owners, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a year,” according to California Watch.

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As a DUI Specialist Orange County, I’ve written about the problems of police impounds at DUI checkpoints in the past, and what a money maker it can be for police departments.  The Los Angeles Times had an article about how the issue of impounds has become a controversial topic in recent years.  Under criticism that it was unfairly targeting undocumented immigrants, the Los Angeles Police Department on Friday announced changes to its rules for impounding cars of unlicensed drivers at sobriety checkpoints.

Previously, LAPD officers at such checkpoints followed stringent protocols that called for them to impound a car whenever the driver was found not to have a valid license, regardless of whether the driver had been drinking.

Those rules have drawn the ire of immigration advocacy groups that said they disproportionately targeted undocumented immigrants, who are not able to obtain licenses legally in nearly all U.S. states. Once a vehicle is impounded, law enforcement agencies often require it to remain locked up for at least a month and charge the owner hefty fees to release it.

The new LAPD guidelines soften the department’s stance somewhat. Police will be required to make an attempt to contact the registered owner of the stopped vehicle. If the owner is a licensed driver and can respond to the checkpoint in “a reasonable period of time,” the officers will release the car to him or her. If the owner is unlicensed, officers will permit another person who is a licensed driver to take the car.

If no one with a license is available, police will impound a vehicle. In any case, police will issue a citation to the unlicensed driver.

Police Chief Charlie Beck said that since he took over the department more than a year ago, the checkpoint policy had “stuck in my craw as one of the things we weren’t doing the right way.” Beck said he decided to make the change after immigration rights advocates raised the issue with him anew in meetings this week.

“I’m tired of casting the net so wide,” he said. “This is the right thing to do. There is a fairness issue here … and we’re trying to balance the needs of all segments of our community and keep the roads safe.”

The new rules, Beck said, were an attempt to mitigate somewhat “the current reality, which is that for a vast number of people, who are a valuable asset to our community and who have very limited resources, their ability to live and work in L.A. is severely limited by their immigration status.”

The change, which the department announced in a news release late Friday afternoon, is likely to anger groups that support strict enforcement of immigration laws. Efforts to contact representatives of several of those groups for comment were unsuccessful.

Police in the small cities of Bell and Maywood have been accused of systematically targeting undocumented immigrants when impounding cars in an effort to boost municipal revenues.

Ron Gochez, a member of the steering committee for the Southern California Immigration Coalition, expressed limited praise for the LAPD’s change but questioned why the department needed to impound a car if the driver had not been drinking.

“It’s a step in the right direction, but it still falls short of what we’re asking for,” he said. “We’re not against checkpoints. We want checkpoints to happen, we want drunk drivers off our streets. We just don’t want people to be losing their cars who aren’t drunk.”

If you have a question for our Newport Beach DUI Lawyers, call me anytime at (877) 568-2977.

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A lawsuit in Santa Barbara County is questioning the legality of DUI checkpoints. A Superior Court judge in Santa Barbara could decide to change the way police departments perform DUI checkpoints. A court date is set for Wednesday.

Santa Barbara Defense Attorney Darryl Genis says officers aren’t following standard operating procedure when holding the checkpoints. Genis says both the CHP and Caltrans have put together model plans for closures and signage, which he believes officers in the “Avoid the 12″ DUI campaign are not following.

Genis says police officers are required to get city council approval before shutting down a road for a DUI checkpoint. He says the same rules apply to a checkpoint as they would for a parade or city event. He also argues in most cases, drivers don’t have enough warning. “They know the process, they just feel that they don’t have to go through that process because it’s a DUI checkpoint,” said Genis.

Monika Biskup, Santa Maria resident, “I personally have a friend, his sister was killed by a drunk driver, so I think it’s important to have DUI checks.” Nationwide, there are 12 states where it is illegal for law enforcement to set up sobriety checkpoints. Opponents have argued of the thousands of drivers who pass through, on average, only a handful are actually arrested.

In 1990, the US Supreme Court ruled the public benefit from the checkpoints outweighed the infringement on search and seizure rights making them constitutional, as long as the proper rules were followed. The DA’s office did not return our calls for comment but there is quite a bit at stake here.

Genis says if the court rules in his favor not only would officers have to comply with all rules, the judge could dismiss all DUI cases where law enforcement did not follow the proper procedures. Lompoc is holding a DUI checkpoint this weekend.

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Our Orange County DUI Lawyers have learned the results of the Costa Mesa Police Department DUI Checkpoint on Wednesday, February 23, 2011, as part of the Police Department’s commitment to public safety.  By publicizing these educational and enforcement efforts, the Costa Mesa Police Department believes motorists are deterred from drinking and driving, even though DUI checkpoints do not seem to be an effective means to achieve that goal.

This checkpoint was one of many that will be conducted throughout the year in Costa Mesa.  There is big money for law enforcement between State and Federal Grants, impound fees, and MADD contributions that keep the less effective DUI checkpoints going instead of the more effective saturation patrols.

The location of Wednesday’s checkpoint was in the 2300 block of Placentia Avenue.  The stats from that checkpoint:

507     Vehicles through the checkpoint
330     Vehicles Screened
2         Drivers given field sobriety tests
1         DUI Suspects Arrested
19       Driver’s license investigations
10       Citations issued
7         Vehicles towed

Only one arrest out of 507 vehicles?  A 0.00197% success rate is not success at all! The checkpoint was funded by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and most of the money goes to officer pay in the way of overtime.  If you have questions for our Newport Beach DUI Lawyers, call me anytime at (714) 568-1560.

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For those traveling out of town this weekend, our Newport Beach DUI Lawyers have learned that the Hemet Police Department has planned a DUI/Drivers License checkpoint Saturday.

The checkpoint is scheduled from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. at an undisclosed location in Hemet.

Our Orange County DUI Lawyers have a secret tip about two DUI checkpoints for tonight, January 14, 2011.

Although not announced on the Orange Police Department website, or in a press release, the Orange Police Department intend to conduct a DUI checkpoint tonight, on Tustin Avenue, likely near the Fling and other hotspots (or dive bars, in the case of the Fling) in the City of Orange, California.

The Huntington Beach Police Department will hold a DUI checkpoint starting at 9 p.m. Saturday on Beach Boulevard.

If you have questions for a DUI Specialist Orange County, call me anytime at (877) 568-2977.  Be safe out there – knowledge is power!

No Orange County DUI Checkpoint locations that I am aware of this weekend, but our Newport Beach DUI Lawyers have uncovered a Los Angeles DUI checkpoint, as follows:

What: Sobriety & Drivers License Checkpoint

When: Friday, December 3, 2010 8 p.m. – 2 a.m.

Where: Cahuenga Boulevard between Broadlawn Drive and Fredonia Drive North Hollywood, California

Who: Emergency Operations Division

Why: Sobriety checkpoints are not a proven enforcement tool effective in reducing the number of persons killed and injured in alcohol involved crashes, and do not work nearly as well as police saturation patrols.

Officers will be checking drivers through the checkpoint for signs of alcohol and or drug impairments.

Officers will check for proper licensing and will impound any vehicles where a person is suspected of driving with an invalid license, bringing in thousands of dollars in impound fees to the police department.

Statewide, overall traffic deaths declined by 23 percent, from 3,995 in 2007 to 3,081 in 2009.

Total traffic fatalities are at their lowest levels in six decades, when the federal government began compiling figures.

Driving under the influence deaths declined by 16 percent, from 1,132 in 2007 to 950 in 2009, according to federal statistics.

Funding for this and other DUI checkpoints are provided to the Los Angeles Police Department by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, bringing major funding to the LAPD.

For further information, please call us, anytime, at (714) 568-1560.

What: Sobriety & Drivers License Checkpoint

When: Friday, November 5, 2010 8 p.m. – 2 a.m.

Where: Roscoe Boulevard between Woodley Avenue and Haskell Ave Van Nuys, California

Who: Emergency Operations Division

Why: Sobriety checkpoints are a proven money maker for police departments, through federal funding, MADD contributions, and impound fees, mainly from unlicensed drivers.

Officers will be checking drivers through the checkpoint for signs of alcohol and or drug impairments.  Officers will check for proper licensing and will strive to impact motorists only momentarily.  If officers suspect that a driver has been drinking or is impaired, they will conduct a field sobriety test.  If you fail, expect jail, vehicle storage fees, license suspension, insurance rate increases, along with fines, fees, driving under the influence classes, other expenses that can exceed $10,000.

Statewide, overall traffic deaths declined by 23 percent, from 3,995 in 2007 to 3,081 in 2009.  Total traffic fatalities are at their lowest levels in six decades, when the federal government began compiling figures.  Driving under the influence deaths declined by 16 percent, from 1,132 in 2007 to 950 in 2009, according to federal statistics.

Funding for this and other DUI checkpoints are provided to the Los Angeles Police Department by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, targeting those who still don’t heed the message to designate a sober driver.  For further information, please contact our Los Angeles DUI lawyers at (877) 568-2977.