VENTURA COUNTY — In spite of the fact that the Camarillo Police Department and the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department go to considerable lengths to publicize the time and place of their planned DUI/Driver’s License checkpoints, people with no business behind the wheel of a motor vehicle still manage to blithely cruise down the streets where rows of orange cones and a dazzling display of emergency lights await them.
According to CPD Traffic Unit spokesman Sr. Deputy Sam Dominguez, that’s exactly what happened between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. on September 16-17th on one of Camarillo’s well traveled thoroughfares.
It was at the Santa Rosa Road checkpoint where the cops screened no fewer than 589 vehicles, issued seven citations, caught four drivers “operating a vehicle unlicensed or while suspended/revoked,” and arrested Simi Valley resident 37-year-old Savanna Dawson and 50-year-old Moorpark resident Clifford Lusk on suspicion of driving under the influence.
Dominguez did not specify the intoxicant suspected of impairing either Lusk or Dawson, but he did indicate that alcohol is no longer the predominant factor in DUI arrests or in accidents.
According to Dominguez, “30 percent of drivers in fatal crashes have one or more drugs in their systems,” with marijuana “most prevalent at 7.4 percent, slightly more than alcohol.” Both Lusk and Dawson, once relieved of their car keys, were arrested, handcuffed, and transported to Ventura County Jail where they were booked on suspicion of driving under the influence.
