Labor Day Weekend: BBQs, Football, and DUI Checkpoints

Not everyone will be watching football or manning the grill or basking in the sun during the last unofficial weekend of summer: Police across the state will be working overtime to ensure drunk drivers stay off the road.

All available California Highway Patrol officers will be on duty beginning at 6 p.m. Friday night until midnight, Monday. In addition, more police agencies will be patrolling city streets and unincorporated parts of the county as part of the end-of-summer "Avoid the 13" campaign that began August 19.

 "With the end of summer and back-to-school, they really wanted to get the word out there they don't want you out there drinking and driving," Sgt. Smith said Friday. Drunken driving is often called DUI, the shorthand for the charge of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department began its crackdown early as part of a combined national anti-DUI effort called “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over,” said Sgt. Troy Smith in a press release. It lasts 18 days, culminating with the Labor Day weekend.

 Sgt. Troy Smith said that a number of extra enforcement measures will be in place for the holiday weekend, including a DUI checkpoint that will be conducted in the area of unincorporated San Jose and city of San Jose on Saturday. Extra roving patrols of police will be plying , Morgan Hill, , , Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and San Jose State University Friday through Sunday. On Labor Day there will be extra patrols working in Milpitas, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and at San Jose State University, according to Smith.

The , which patrols most of the Peninsula, scheduled a checkpoint Friday night from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. on westbound Highway 92 at Highway 35. The Hollister-Gilroy CHP will not have any drunken driving checkpoints, but will have additional roving units on patrol looking out for reckless or drunk drivers.

"We have a primary goal of traffic safety, whether it's unsafe driving habits or drinking and driving," said officer Jaime Rios, a spokesman for the .

Twenty-one people were killed in collisions on California roads during the Labor Day holiday weekend last year, according to a CHP press release. Over half of all those killed in the CHP jurisdiction weren't wearing a seatbelt.

State-wide in 2010, 1,521 DUI arrests were made, seven percent more than in 2009.

The Sheriff's Department urged motorists to call 911 if they witness a motorist driving recklessly or appears impaired.