Long Beach police will be on the lookout for drunk and drugged drivers Saturday night during a DUI checkpoint.
“In recent years, California has seen a disturbing increase in drug-impaired driving crashes,” police said in a news release.
The department specifically pointed out that prescription medication and marijuana can be impairing, not just alcohol.
High profile checkpoints like the one planned for Saturday night are intended as deterrents for drivers who might have otherwise gotten behind the wheel after drinking or taking drugs.
Police did not disclose exactly where they planned to have the checkpoint but said it would be in the department’s north division, which covers most of the city above Wardlow Road.
Police will run the checkpoint from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Officers will also check drivers to make sure they have a valid license, they said.
“In California, alcohol-involved collisions led to 1,155 deaths and nearly 24,000 serious injuries in 2014 because someone failed to designate a sober driver,” police said. “Over the course of the past three years, LBPD officers have investigated 1,024 DUI collisions, which have claimed 10 lives and resulted in another 392 injuries.”
Police cited studies showing that 30 percent of drivers in deadly crashes had at least one drug in their system at the time of the wreck.