On Thursday, August 27, Manatee County Sheriff Brad Steube announced that his department and Florida's local Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) chapters are partnering up in an unprecedented program planned to launch this Labor Day weekend. The program places volunteer MADD observers on the side of local roadways and highways in order to observe traffic and report potential drunk drivers. This additional level of security will be utilized in conjunction with specially scheduled DUI checkpoints and Saturation Patrols.

MADD's program, aptly titled the Traffic Observation Program (TOP), is the first of its kind in the nation and will serve as a pilot program lasting for the duration of six months. After six months, the program's success, based on response times, percent of arrests, and number of observations and interceptions, will be assessed.
Participants in the Traffic Observation Program will be paired into teams of two and will be given the task of observing oncoming traffic on local roadways and highways for signs of impairment from unmarked, civilian vehicles. If a driver is suspected of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the MADD volunteers will report the vehicle to the Sheriff's department for further investigation. MADD Volunteer Leader LaVonne Bower states that MADD observers have received specialized in-class and ride-along training in order to be able to properly identify individuals suspected of driving under the influence.

While the Traffic Observation Program is being launched on Labor Day weekend, the MADD volunteers have no intention of isolating their roadside observations to holidays or weekends. The roadside teams will be on the road every weekend, in addition to several nights during the week, for the next six months, until the success of the program can be properly evaluated.

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According to California Highway Patrol (CHP), this Labor Day weekend the Maximum Enforcement Period (MEP) will begin at 6 p.m. on Friday, August 29, and will last until midnight on Monday, September 1. Beginning sixty years ago, the CHP, in response to legislative, public, and media based pressures, initiated a program entitled the Maximum Enforcement Period in order to combat the escalated levels of roadway accidents and deaths often seen during holidays. After compiling traffic accident and fatality statistics for the state of California, the first CHP commissioner, Clifford Peterson, decided in 1948 that the CHP needed to take additional steps during major holidays in order to offset the growing number of accidents.

The CHP identified six major holidays in which to provide extra monitoring, including the upcoming Labor Day weekend. During these Maximum Enforcement Periods, nearly eighty percent of local CHP officers are assigned to duty in order to provide extra monitoring for potential reckless driving. This weekend, one can expect that all available officers from the Bay Area's twelve CHP county offices will be on the road and participating in these heightened security measures. The CHP will also be utilizing DUI checkpoints in order to cut down on the number of impaired drivers on the road.
During this long weekend, CHP officers will be attempt to identify violators of three major causes of roadway accidents which include individuals who are not wearing seatbelts, individuals who are speeding, and individuals suspected of driving under the influence or either drugs or alcohol.

Last Labor Day weekend, the CHP reported that both DUI arrests and fatalities had fallen from statistics collected in previous years. Between Friday, August 31, 2007 and Tuesday, September 4, 2007, five hundred individuals were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, a number which decreased from five hundred and seventy eight arrests during the same period in 2006. There was also a significant decrease in the number of DUI related deaths, dropping to two DUI related deaths in 2007 after four DUI related fatalities were reported in 2006 during the Labor Day holiday weekend.

In addition to the CHP labeling Labor Day weekend as a Maximum Enforcement Period, this weekend is also considered an Operation Combined Accident Reduction Effort (C.A.R.E.) which focuses its' efforts on increased officer presence on Interstate highways such as I-5 and I-80.

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This week, the Law Office of Robert Tayac achieved a set aside of a client's DMV license suspension. The client, who will be referred to here as J.K., was arrested for driving under the influence and charged in the San Francisco Superior Court.

On the evening of April 9, 2008, J.K. left a birthday party at which she consumed a shot of tequila immediately before driving. Shortly after leaving the party, around midnight that evening, J.K was pulled over by a California Highway Patrol officer who suspected her of drunk driving. Upon request by the law enforcement officer, J.K. submitted to a PAS (Preliminary Alcohol Screening) test, which indicated a BAC of .09 percent. Subsequently, J.K. was taken into custody and submitted to a breath test that also indicated a BAC of .09 percent.

At J.K.'s hearing before the San Francisco Driver Safety Office, the Law Office of Robert Tayac brought in expert toxicologist Halle Weingarten to testify. Ms. Weingarten testified that the results of J.K's PAS and breath tests did not prove that she had a BAC of .08 at the time she was driving. When a person consumes an alcoholic beverage, his or her BAC will rise for between 20 minutes and 2 hours afterward. The process of retrograde extrapolation can be used to estimate someone's BAC at the time of driving by projecting backwards from a later chemical test. Since J.K was pulled over shortly after she consumed the shot of tequila, her BAC was still rising at the time she was driving and taken into custody. Considering the fact that J.K.'s BAC was .09 by the time she took the breathalyzer test at the police station, Ms. Weingarten applied retrograde extrapolation to conclude that J.K's BAC may have been under .08 percent at the time of driving. Additionally, PAS devices are often inaccurate and can read BAC levels up to .02 percent above or below the real level. Consequently, according to Ms. Weingarten, even though the PAS reading was .09 percent, the DMV could not prove that J.K's BAC was .08 percent or higher at the time she was driving.

The hearing officer determined that the Department of Motor Vehicles could not prove by preponderance of the evidence that J.K. had a BAC of .08 or higher at the time of driving. Subsequently, she set aside the DMV suspension action against J.K.'s license.

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