Tuesday September 4, 2001

Slightest bit of impairment enough to land in jail

The number of Tucson-wide DUI arrests Friday night exceeded the total number for all of Labor Day weekend last year, police officials said.

As of yesterday afternoon, the Southern Arizona DUI Task Force, a collaboration of the Tucson Police Department, UAPD and Arizona Department of Public Safety, made 134 DUI arrests out of 899 traffic stops. Nine of those arrests were offenders who were between the new blood alcohol limit of 0.08 percent and the old limit of 0.1 percent.

On Friday night alone, they made 84 arrests, in comparison with 81 from the entire weekend last year.

Officials said although the arrest number was high, there were no fatalities involving alcohol.

Although DPS officials hoped to use the lowering of the limit as an educational tool, they expect results from the new law to be apparent in approximately six months.

"The new limit is just one law that a driver might violate in order to get arrested," said Sgt Chris Andreacola, coordinator of the Southern Arizona DUI Task Force. "The slightest bit of impairment is the first thing we look for."

Andreacola said in many cases, people can be impaired with a blood alcohol content of below 0.08 percent.

"There are medical studies that say that 0.05 (percent) is enough to impair someone," he said. "An arrest depends on whether we can prove that it has affected your ability to drive."

Andreacola said the nine people who were arrested for being between the old limit and new limit would have been arrested anyway. The new DUI limit was one more thing to charge them with.

Out of the 134 people who were arrested, 20 met the extreme DUI level of 0.15 percent. On average, the BAC was 0.149 percent - just below the extreme limit.

Officials said the consequences for a convicted DUI are normally a mandatory day in jail, $500 to $1,000 fine and a mandatory 90-day suspension from driving.

Extreme DUI offenders receive three days in jail and are required to install a system in their car that will prevent them from starting it unless they pass a breathalyzer test device attached to the vehicle. Installation of the device is also at the cost of the offender.

"If you get a suspension through the city court, there is also a mandatory insurance hike of thousands of dollars," he said.

The DPS Cab Ride program was busy despite the unusually high amount of arrests. Yellow Cab Company, one of the biggest participants in the program, reported 100 to 150 calls from Friday at 6 p.m. to yesterday afternoon. Yellow Cab officials reported a wait time of five to 25 minutes for a ride home during the busiest hours.

"We've had a lot of University of Arizona kids inquiring about it," said Eric Kirk, dispatcher at Yellow Cab Co. "We've had a lot of UA kids call from Fourth Avenue and all over the university area."

Both the DUI Task Force and Safe Ride participants expected high numbers for last night as well

Golden Eagle Distributors, a local alcohol vendor, will foot the bill for all of the holiday cab rides given.