Most holidays are a time to enjoy gathering with family and friends. Often, this includes the consumption of alcohol. While all states have laws against driving while intoxicated, it is still an issue. Some holidays are worse than others when it comes to the number of intoxicated drivers on the road. New Year’s Day ranks number one for the number of drunk driving accidents and arrests. While not a holiday per se, Super Bowl Sunday ranks second. Coming in third place is Independence Day when intoxicated drivers can hit the road at any time of day, not just at night.
KTLA reports on the number of DUI arrests and fatalities over the long holiday weekend. The California Highway Patrol’s Maximum Enforcement Period for the Independence Day holiday began at 6 p.m. last Wednesday. Between 6 p.m. on July 3rd and 6 p.m. on July 5th, the California Highway Patrol reported that 589 people were arrested for suspicion of DUI. To give this number perspective, in the first 30 hours of the 2018 holiday, the CHP arrested just 389 arrests. That works out to an arrest every five minutes.
As a warning, on Wednesday night, the CHP Tweeted a photo of an officer giving a male a field sobriety test. The man was eventually arrested. In another eye-opening statistic, the CHP reported that over the Fourth of July weekend, there were 12 fatalities in crashes statewide. This number is down from last year when 18 people were killed.
The enforcement period ended Sunday at midnight, so the total number of DUIs over the weekend may be higher.
