Capt. Sandra Tong: Don't drink and drive

On March 17, we will celebrate Saint Patrick's Day in the Richmond District. Traditionally, people have been known to come to our neighborhood to have a few drinks with their friends because our bars and taverns are known for their friendly and comfortable atmospheres. There are, however, some potential problems that could arise once the celebrating and drinking begins.

Drinking and driving is a serious public safety problem in California. Alcohol-related traffic accidents kill more than 17,000 people each year and another 321,000 people are injured. That's an average of one person injured every two minutes - with approximately 96,000 of these injuries being serious.

Each year in California, an estimated 203,000 people who think they are sober are arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI).

To deter these high numbers of injuries and deaths, the San Francisco Police Department will set up sobriety checkpoints. Checkpoints are a police activity in which motorists are stopped in a safe, uniform and speedy manner in order to identify and remove drunk or impaired drivers from the road. The checkpoints are usually set along areas with high incidences of DUI arrests or alcohol-related accidents (for example, Geary Boulevard).

For the driver under the age of 21 who is arrested for a driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, he or she may lose the use of their driver's license for a period of one year. Drivers over the age of 21 can lose their driver's license for four months.

Drivers arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol are responsible for $1,200 in fees and fines, they could spend up to 48 hours in jail and up to three years on probation, have their insurance increased to $1,500 a year, spend 15 weeks at DUI classes, spend the next seven years with two points on their driving record, and they get to spend a lot of time at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The money and time involved with this is quite extreme, as it should be, but another consequence could be lifelong guilt if a person was hurt or killed.

If you do decide to drink and you find yourself unable to drive safely, please consider calling a taxicab, a friend or consider taking public transportation home. We want you and everyone else to have a safe and happy Saint Patrick's Day.

Capt. Sandra Tong is the commanding officer at the Richmond Police Station.