Enjoy the big game, drive sober, and report drunk driving.

(2/1/13) – IE Transit Talking Points Short

Super Bowl Sunday is this weekend. That means plenty of good times, football excitement, and of course, cocktails and drinks. Just a friendly reminder: If you are planning on breaking open a few beers, wine, or any other alcoholic beverage this Sunday, do not, under any circumstances, drive. DUI laws will be strictly enforced over the weekend. Sobriety checkpoints will be set up all throughout Southern California.

During the 2012 Christmas season from December 14^th– January 1^st, three people were reportedly killed in Riverside County alone due to DUI’s. That is down from five deaths from the 2011 season, but that is still three deaths too many. Freely choosing to consume alcohol and later drive under the influence is pure foolishness and hazardous to everybody else driving the roads. Such actions directly obstruct the mission of The Transit Coalition of moving Southern California. Anybody guilty of making our highways dangerous by driving under the influence of alcohol must be held accountable.

California has some of the heaviest penalties for drunk driving, and since approximately 200,000 suspected drunk drivers in the state are busted per year, all of us should consider stepping up and fighting back this weekend. Save a life, take advantage of the state’s Designated Driver Program, and if you should see a drunk driver, call 911. 

Remember the wise words from our National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Drive sober or get pulled over. 

Innovative Sobriety & Highway Enforcement Tools

A UC Riverside professor and his students embrace intelligence-driven highway enforcement, for citizens, to combat drunk driving.

A computer science professor from UC Riverside with the help of two students has developed a smart phone application that allows citizen drivers to participate in intelligence-driven highway enforcement, specifically to combat drunk driving. Professor Frank Vahid and UCR computer science majors Timothy Cherney and Daniel de Haas developed the free program called DuiCam which allows a mounted Android or iPhone to video record 30 minutes of highway activity.

Should drivers suspect dangerous drunk driving or any other serious illegal activity such as a hit-and-run, they can pull over, dial 911, and forward any relevant footage to law enforcement with a push of a few buttons. The program could also be used to document traffic collisions, reducing the speculation of who is at fault. Many transit buses and trains are already equipped with similar cameras and recording devices, but UCR has now provided a free software alternative for private motorists. Obviously Vahid, Cherney and de Haas want to get Southern California moving safely. They are patriots for developing a free citizen's intelligence-driven enforcement tool to combat drunk driving. This tool also opens the door for even more efficient and more powerful CHP enforcement innovations at minimal costs.

Take a look at this Transit Coalition conceptual enforcement graphic of the planned I-15 Tolled Express Lanes in Riverside County. The concept shows a point-of-view from a CHP patrol car with an enforcement computer monitor with multiple intelligence-driven features. The monitor is connected with the patrol's video camera and uses existing radar technology to clock a vehicle's speed. Using a connected remote infrared scanning system, the monitor also shows the vehicle occupancy count. For non-HOV's, the computer can also check for the presence of a valid FasTrak, link the transponder to an account, and show whether it was properly mounted upon HOT lane entry. Intelligence-driven enforcement has a future in transportation.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Metro has been responding to criticism regarding the usage policy of the I-110 Metro ExpressLanes which includes numerous complaints of worsened traffic congestion along the general purpose lanes. The agency is exploring four alternatives. Could it be that Metro is considering eliminating the FasTrak mandate for carpools and adopting intelligence-driven HOV enforcement for the I-110? Sadly, this wise alternative is not being considered. By the looks of Metro's proposals, the discussion is all about the $3 monthly FasTrak account fee, not about moving legit non-transponder HOV's like private sector buses.

This Greyhound bus, for example, was found sitting in traffic along the 91 Freeway during a Coalition field study last weekend, all due to a transponder mandate for 3+ HOV's to use the 91 Express Lanes. That Greyhound coach alone lost approximately 10-15 minutes worth of trip time in congestion, a preventable expense that gets paid for by the rider. Southern California transportation officials need to get out, spend a few days in San Diego County, the Bay area, Seattle, Denver, Utah, and Minneapolis and see exactly how agencies there operate their toll lanes done right.