Elk Grove Police Receives Grant For DUI Checkpoints

The Elk Grove Department has been awarded a new traffic safety grant for an anti-DUI program aimed at preventing deaths and injuries on our roadways.

Additional enforcement measures to combat impaired driving are coming as a result of a recent $54,000 grant awarded by the California Office of Traffic Safety to Elk Grove.

“The Elk Grove Police Department is committed to making sure that our streets remain free of impaired drivers,” Elk Grove Police Chief Robert Lehner said. “This grant will ensure that our department continues to take a proactive role in locating and identifying those drivers who choose to drive impaired.”

In 2011, Elk Grove experienced 3 deaths and 46 injures as a result of these tragic crashes. Crashes involving alcohol drop by an average of 20 percent when well-publicized checkpoints are conducted often enough.

“DUI checkpoints have been an essential part of the phenomenal reduction in DUI deaths that we witnessed from 2006 to 2010 in California,” said Christopher J. Murphy, Director of the Office of Traffic Safety. “But since the tragedy of DUI accounts for nearly one third of traffic fatalities, Elk Grove needs the high visibility enforcement and public awareness that this grant will provide.”

Funding for this program is from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.