SACRAMENTO--California Highway Patrol arrests for driving under the influence spiked dramatically during the 2017 holiday season compared to 2016: more people were arrested in California for DUIs over Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends, and the trend continued over New Year’s weekend.

Statewide, the CHP arrested 936 people for driving under the influence between the evening of Dec. 29 and Jan. 1. Last year during that same period, CHP arrested 767 for driving under the influence, a 22 percent boost. The CHP’s Golden Gate Division, which includes the Bay Area, arrested 157 people for driving under the influence, nearly double the number of arrests they made in 2016.

“Anytime you see a rise it’s concerning, especially when we look at fatalities because that’s somebody’s loved one,” said CHP Officer John Fransen. “But the sheer number of arrests that are made, to see roughly 1,000 people arrested in every single maximum enforcement period, it’s disheartening.”

This uptick was a statewide pattern throughout the holiday season: over Thanksgiving weekend, CHP arrested 1,057 people for DUIs, compared to 902 in 2016. Over Christmas weekend, the CHP made 917 DUI arrests.

During the same period in 2016, the agency arrested 621 people.

The numbers represent only drivers ticketed by the CHP, and does not include citations issued by local law enforcement agencies across California.

These holidays are all maximum enforcement periods, which means the CHP has more officers on the road. These periods can vary in length from year to year, depending on when in the week the holiday falls. Over the past 10 years, the number of arrests on Christmas and New Year’s have gone up and down, sometimes rising and falling with the length of the enforcement period. But the enforcement periods for both New Year’s and Christmas were the same length in 2016 and 2017, so it’s not clear why more arrests were made.

Since Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday, that enforcement period is the same every year.

“I would just be guessing” why there was an increase, Fransen said. “It’s not necessarily that there are more officers, because anytime there’s a maximum enforcement period, any available officers are on the road. It could be that more people are choosing to get behind the wheel of a vehicle and think that they can drive after they’ve had a few too many drinks.”

Fransen said that it’s too early to say whether those arrested were under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both. “A lot of these are pending investigation,” Fransen said.

There were 23 fatalities due to traffic collisions over New Year’s weekend in 2017; last year there were 14 deaths over the same period.

Over the Christmas maximum enforcement period, 16 people died, a decrease from last year, when 23 people lost their lives. One of the crashes in 2017 killed a CHP officer, Andrew Camilleri. On Christmas Eve, a driver crashed into him at a high speed. The driver, Mohammed Abraar Ali, was charged Tuesday with second-degree murder as well as driving under the influence of alcohol and marijuana.

The CHP and the California Office of Traffic Safety are embarking on a public information campaign to educate the public on driving under the influence of drugs, as recreational marijuana use becomes legal in California.

From 2005 to 2015, the percentage of drivers in fatal collisions who had an impairing drug other than alcohol in their system increased from 26.2 percent to 42.6 percent, according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“I think our biggest concern as we look at the statistics on other states that have legalized recreational marijuana, it seems like there’s a sharp increase in DUI-related traffic collisions and fatalities,” Fransen said. “We’re concerned because obviously we don’t want to see California follow that strong trend.” (Source: The San Francisco Chronicle)

Story Date: January 7, 2018