Riverside County Sheriff’s Dept. Begins ‘Super’ Crackdown On DUI

Law enforcement officers across Riverside County will be out in force this Super Bowl Sunday, looking for intoxicated drivers and those without proper licenses.

Last year, the police chief ended up losing his job over a drunken driving escapade that started on Super Bowl Sunday.

Today, law enforcement officer from 30 agencies will be on patrol and staffing checkpoints around the Inland Empire.

Riverside police Sgt. Dwayne May, the “Avoid the 30” campaign coordinator, said National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics show that in roughly half of the crash fatalities recorded on Super Bowl Sunday 2008, the motorists at fault had a blood-alcohol level of at least 0.08 percent — the state threshold for drunken driving.

A couple of beers in one hour can put most drivers in jeopardy of being convicted, an offense that generally carries a price tag running into the thousands of dollars.

Russ Leach, who was the Riverside police chief at the time, ran a red light, hit a pole and tore the tires off a city-owned car, until one of his officers stopped him and had him taken home in the early morning after the Super Bowl last year. He had been drinking at a strip club.

Saturation patrols are planned today in Banning, Blythe, Canyon Lake, Coachella, Corona, Lake Elsinore, Lake Perris, Menifee, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Perris, Riverside, San Jacinto and Temecula.

Here’s some tips for those hosting Super Bowl parties:

— Ensure guests have a designated driver or can arrange for ride-sharing;

— serve plenty of food and non-alcoholic beverages at the party;

— stop serving alcohol before the end of the game’s third quarter; and

— take the keys away from guests showing obvious signs of drunkenness and call them a cab if necessary.