Holiday Weekend Drunken Driving Arrests Running Higher Than Last Year

Drunken driving arrests continue to rise midway through an anti-drunken driving campaign for the four-day Independence Day  weekend, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office said Sunday.

Both local routine traffic enforcement and special Avoid the 13 DUI deployments overnight in Santa Clara County resulted in the arrest of 47 individuals for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, said Sgt. Rick Sung, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.

These arrests, made among the 15 agencies participating in the anti-drunken driving campaign, combine for a cumulative 64 arrests made since the crackdown started on Friday, Sung said.

In 2010, officers made 33 DUI arrests, in the same 48-hour period, Sung noted.

There were no DUI fatalities. There were two DUI-related injury crashes each on Saturday, and on Friday, Sung said.

Enforcement will continue Sunday through Monday nights, with extra DUI Saturation Patrols will be deployed in the cities of Milpitas, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Altos Hills, and San Jose, Sung said.

Funding that pays for the overtime shifts for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Here is the cumulative breakdown by city, as known Sunday morning:

• MOUNTAIN VIEW POLICE: 6
• Campbell: 2
• PALO ALTO POLICE: 1
• SAN JOSE POLICE: 15
• SANTA CLARA POLICE: 3
• SC SHERIFF: 6
• SUNNYVALE POLICE: 5
• SAN JOSE CHP: 25

Note: The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department, which covers Cupertino, Saratoga and Los Altos Hills, did not disclose details about the location of the two arrests on Friday. The San Jose CHP, which covers a wide area south of Mountain View and north of Gilroy, also did not report specific locations.