At a press conference on Wednesday, from left, Department of Public Safety-Highway Safety Patrol Sgt. Adrian Mendiola, Highway Safety Coordinator Margaret Camacho, Highway Patrol Commander Vicente Sablan and DPS Public Information Officer Fred Sato.
THERE were zero fatalities or serious injuries during the holidays, thanks to the Drunk, Drugged, Drowsy and Distracted Driving or 4Ds Prevention Campaign, Department of Public Safety-Highway Safety Patrol Sgt. Adrian Mendiola said in a press conference on Wednesday.
“The Highway Patrol Division came up with a strategic plan in 2023 to reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries on the highway,” Mendiola added.
He said they focused on public outreach, public education and enforcement.
“The plan was statistically generated and tailored to the issues we faced out on our highways,” he added.
“We noticed that for a lot of violators who were speeding, alcohol was also involved. The first part of our plan was public outreach with local media, including local radio stations. We also worked with the Public School System. We conducted presentations and the reason behind that is to educate the public and make them aware about dangerous driving habits. We used statistics to deter them from doing it. We went hard with our public outreach. We believe that going out there, educating them, giving them a fair warning is the right thing to do. Educating before we hit them with enforcement. Our enforcement, went hard as well — we made our presence known out there,” Mendiola said.
He said the Highway Patrol Division also organized school presentations targeting junior and senior students.
“The objective was to educate young drivers about the dangers of impaired and distracted driving. By delivering an informative presentation, we aimed to instill safe driving habits and encourage responsible behavior among young drivers,” Mendiola added.
“During festive seasons, alcohol is always involved and the highway becomes more dangerous because of the impaired drivers out there. We took our enforcement plan and tailored it. … The checkpoints were not just set up anywhere. We wanted them strategically set up at specific times and specific locations where we noticed there was a problem. We also incorporated speed enforcement. As you know, speed kills, then you have alcohol, and that is a very dangerous combination out there on the road. By educating the public and then moving to enforcement, we did it in a manner that was more effective,” he said.
“We have a population of about 49,000 and a total of 23,000 registered vehicles — almost half of the population. And then we have about 44 square miles of an island. We can say that we are congested, and we have ongoing projects on Beach Road that make it more dangerous for operators. We took it to heart. We wanted to create an enforcement plan that will make an impact during the holiday season. The ultimate goal for highway patrol is to zero out fatalities and serious injuries,” Mendiola said.
DPS Highway Safety set up a series of sobriety checkpoints from Dec. 8, 2023-Jan. 1, 2024.
“This approach aimed to deter and detect impaired driving, ensuring that the drivers were not under the influence of alcohol or drugs while on the roadway,” Mendiola said. “In our statistics we found that majority of the operators that were speeding over the posted speed limit were … under the influence of alcohol.”
According to DPS Highway Patrol Commander Vicente Sablan, “We are mandated to conduct 24-36 checkpoints a year.”
Highway Safety Coordinator Margaret Camacho said the number includes Tinian and Rota checkpoints.
“We do our checkpoints based on statistics, fatal areas, fatal time and fatal conditions,” Sablan said. “Checkpoints are mainly geared to target the fatal areas like Waterloo and Middle Road,” he added.
“We have not seen any road fatality in the past seven months,” Sablan said.
Mendiola also shared the following enforcement statistics:
There were 202 total citations issued during the holidays, and these included seat belt and child car seat violations.
There were 1,012 contacts between police officers and operators, Mendiola said, adding that two operators were cited for driving while under the influence of alcohol with a Blood Alcohol Concentration of .08.
During the 4Ds campaign, DPS Highway Safety also provided free and safe drive-home services.
“The program offered options and sources of transportation to the traveling public who planned to consume alcohol during the holiday season,” Mendiola said.
Fifty-seven individuals availed themselves of the Safe Ride program, he added.
“We zeroed out fatality and we zeroed serious injury,” Mendiola reiterated. “We also give credit to our community for being responsible on the highway, adhering to safe driving practices and spreading the word out about 4Ds. Thank you to the community for working with us.”
