One person was arrested for driving under the influence and 22 others were cited during a DUI checkpoint in Palm Desert on April 17. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department reported that the checkpoint took place at Highway 111 and Deep Canyon Drive from 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.
The event is part of ongoing efforts to improve road safety by removing impaired drivers from local streets. Law enforcement agencies use these checkpoints as a strategy to reduce crashes related to impaired driving.
According to Sergeant Bryan De Loss, who supervised the operation, officers made one DUI arrest, cited ten people for being unlicensed drivers, one person for having a suspended driver license, and eleven individuals for other traffic violations. In total, law enforcement contacted 1,171 vehicles during the checkpoint. Of those, forty-six vehicles were sent for secondary screening and six field sobriety tests were administered.
Authorities say that locations for such checkpoints are selected based on areas with higher numbers of reported impaired driving incidents. “The primary purpose of DUI checkpoints is to promote public safety by taking suspected impaired drivers off roads,” said De Loss.
Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Office of Traffic Safety Grant Program. For more information about this incident or future operations, media inquiries can be directed to the Media Information Bureau.
