MOTORIST CHECKS A SUCCESS OFFICERS ARREST 6, CITE MANY.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Six suspected drunken drivers were arrested and more than 220 speeders ticketed in special traffic enforcement efforts that came one weekend after seven deaths on Antelope Valley streets and highways.

Lancaster sheriff's deputies checked nearly 450 motorists at a five-hour drunken-driving checkpoint Friday night, and California Highway Patrol officials put extra officers on Antelope Valley highways and a CHP airplane in the sky from Friday morning through Sunday.

``It seems like we had a rash (of fatal crashes) on Friday and Saturday nights through July and August,'' CHP Lt. Andria Witmer said Monday.

A large number of Antelope Valley fatalities investigated by the CHP involve unsafe turning movements - which includes vehicles running off roads - and drunk driving, Witmer said.

Three people were arrested on suspicion of drunk driving during the sobriety checkpoint on Sierra Highway south of Avenue L, sheriff's deputies said.

Two other people who came through the checkpoint were arrested on weapons-possession charges, and 26 motorists were cited or arrested for having suspended or no driver's licenses. Twenty-five vehicles were impounded at the checkpoint, deputies said.

The extra CHP officers, brought in from all around Los Angeles County, were part of a Special Problem Enforcement and Response team. They ticketed 223 speeders on the Antelope Valley Freeway, Highway 138 and Highway 18, Witmer said.

The extra officers also arrested three drunken drivers and gave out 80 other tickets, including 22 for people not wearing seat belts, 21 for mechanical defects and 25 to commercial trucks.

One person died this weekend on Antelope Valley streets and highways: a pedestrian hit by a apparent drunken driver early Sunday on Division Street north of Lancaster.

The previous weekend's fatalities included three woman whose compact was hit head-on on the Antelope Valley Freeway in Palmdale early Aug. 14 by a drunken-driving suspect traveling the wrong way. A Palmdale man died minutes later when his car ran off Avenue R.

Other fatalities that weekend included a motorcyclist who hit a big rig that pulled onto Highway 138 in front of him, a Lancaster man whose car ran off Business Center Parkway, and a Lake Los Angeles man whose compact ran a stop sign at a desert intersection.

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com