You have your beer-guzzler helmet ready, and your board shorts from last year still fit. There's just one more thing you need to be fully prepared for summer's traditional opening holiday weekend: some damn sense.

The California Highway Patrol is going into maximum-enforcement mode, and local cops and sheriff's deputies will be running DUI checkpoints and special patrols for Memorial Day Weekend.

The Los Angeles Police Department and other area agencies are trying to help you get some sense by warning that they're going to be actively hunting down drunk drivers. Mercy is not expected.

The LAPD, for one, believes that its specific warnings about its DUI operations dissuade at least some of you from getting behind wheel while inebriated, thus saving lives.

Here's the 411 on this holiday crackdown:

-Tonight from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. a checkpoint will be awaiting your arrival at Olympic Boulevard and Blaine Street near Staples Center.

-Tonight from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. a checkpoint will be up and running at Van Nuys Boulevard and Hart Street in trendy Van Nuys.

-Tonight from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. the LAPD will go west to find some white people to bust (a rarity for checkpoints). A checkpoint will be waiting for you at La Brea Avenue and Third Street (Trader Joe's!) in Varrio Hancock Parque (VHP).

-Tonight the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department will have a checkpoint waiting for you at an undisclosed address in Lakewood.

-Tonight, from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., Pasadena police will be running a checkpoint at an undisclosed location in their fair city.

-Saturday there will be extra police on the streets of the LAPD's Central Bureau area (downtown, Westlake, Echo Park, Boyle Heights, and more) from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. The LAPD calls this a DUI “saturation patrol.”

-Saturday, from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., a checkpoint will be running at Western Avenue and Slauson Avenue in South Los Angeles.

-Saturday from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. L.A. sheriff's deputies will be running a checkpoint at an undisclosed location in the spicy city of Pico Rivera.

-Saturday from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Santa Monica police will be manning a checkpoint at an undisclosed location in their town. 

Credit: File photo by Ed Carrasco for L.A. Weekly

Credit: File photo by Ed Carrasco for L.A. Weekly

-Sunday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. a checkpoint will be set up to catch some of you day drinkers. It'll be at Harbor Boulevard and Santa Cruz Street in fragrant San Pedro.

-Sunday, from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., a DUI saturation patrol will be hunting drunk drivers in the LAPD's Southwest Division area, which includes the neighborhoods from USC to Baldwin Hills.

-Sunday from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. an LAPD saturation patrol will hit the streets of Hollywood. Fish in a barrel.

Be safe.

Send feedback and tips to the author. Follow Dennis Romero on Twitter at @dennisjromero. Follow L.A. Weekly News on Twitter at @laweeklynews.

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