The Winter Holiday anti-drunk driving campaign has already resulted in a significant number of arrests, according to the Turlock Police Department, the overseeing agency for the local Avoid the 12 program.

From 12:01 a.m. Friday through midnight Sunday, the 12 Stanislaus County law enforcement agencies in the program had arrested 27 individuals for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

In 2009, 39 DUI arrests occurred during the same 72-hour time period.

The Avoid the 12 has several checkpoints, multi-agency task force deployments and local roving DUI patrols scheduled for the remainder of the holiday season.

During last year’s campaign, 36 Californians were killed in crashes statewide with a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher and another 1,168 were injured in alcohol-related crashes.

Funding for the Winter Holiday campaign is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety.

To contact Sabra Stafford, e-mail sstafford@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2002.