Drunken-Driving Deaths Are Up. Why Are DUI Arrests Down?
About 13,500 people died in alcohol-impairment crashes in 2022, but DUI arrests in recent years have sunk to multidecade lows
By Scott Calvert, WSJ
May 2, 2024 10:00 am ET
Drunken-driving deaths in the U.S. have risen to levels not seen in nearly two decades, federal data show, a major setback to long-running road-safety efforts.
At the same time, arrests for driving under the influence have plummeted, as police grapple with challenges like hiring woes and heightened concern around traffic stops.
“We are really stuck in some quicksand,” said James Fell, who has been studying impaired driving since 1967 and is a principal research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization.
About 13,500 people died in alcohol impairment-related crashes in 2022, according to data released in April by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That is 33% above 2019’s toll and on par with 2021’s. The last time so many people died as a result of accidents involving intoxicated drivers was in 2006.
NHTSA hasn’t released 2023 data, but anecdotal reports suggest alcohol-related crash deaths fell only slightly last year, said Jonathan Adkins, who runs the nonprofit Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety offices.
“It’s still a very urgent situation,” he said.
Drunken-driving deaths began rising in 2020, early in the Covid-19 pandemic. Within weeks police saw jumps in risky behavior—speeding, lack of seat-belt use, impaired driving—on roads that were relatively empty with so many people staying home. During this time, police tried to limit contact with drivers to avoid catching the coronavirus.
Though the risk of arrest is widely considered a key deterrent to drunken driving, DUI arrests in recent years have sunk to multidecade lows, Federal Bureau of Investigation figures show. They dropped from just over a million in 2019 to about 780,000 in 2020. The FBI said there were 788,000 such arrests in 2022, the latest data available.
“One of the best things that we can do is enforcement and be out there, be visible and stop cars, and when we see someone’s impaired, we make an arrest,” said Capt. Chris Kinn of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. “If there’s not severe consequences, then people might be more apt to do some of those dangerous behaviors.”
Many activists and policymakers are banking on the promise of built-in devices to prevent a car from starting if the driver is intoxicated, either by analyzing a driver’s exhaled breath or using skin sensors to gauge the blood-alcohol level. NHTSA issued a notice in December that it said lays the groundwork for potential alcohol-impairment detection technology standards in all new cars “when the technology is mature.”
Until then, stepped-up enforcement will remain crucial, said Stephanie Manning, chief government affairs officer at the advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD.
“People drive drunk because they can,” she said. “We want law enforcement to be able to do their job so that if you make that poor choice, that illegal choice, you’re going to face some serious consequences. That’s what’s going to change people’s behavior.”
Officials in Ohio, which has broadly mirrored national trends on DUI arrests and fatalities, said they are intent on reducing the number of deaths caused by drunken driving and other types of drug impairment.
“Saving lives is an absolute top priority,” Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said in an interview. “I think it’s an enforcement issue. I think it’s an education issue. I think it’s also judges enforcing that law.”
The state highway patrol, like many police agencies, is short-staffed. It has 1,350 troopers despite being budgeted for “the high 1500s,” said its superintendent, Col. Chuck Jones. But steadily improving recruitment is cause for optimism, he said.
It is critical to public safety for drivers to see troopers staked out on highways and making DUI arrests when necessary, said Kinn, who heads impaired-driving efforts for the agency. He said there is also more emphasis on treatment as a way to break cycles that lead to repeat offenses. Starting last year, everyone arrested by troopers for DUI is referred to behavioral health services, he said, and providers can do direct outreach.
Sandi Churby lost her 27-year-old son in October 2020 to a wrong-way drunken driver. Clintin Churby was headed home from work when Larry Dean Miller plowed into his car, killing him. Miller, who had four previous DUI convictions, had a blood-alcohol content twice the legal limit, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and was sentenced to up to 10½ years in prison.
Sandi Churby called the drop in arrests mind-boggling but said she understands the decline given how often drunken drivers reoffend. “If I was an officer, my arrests would be down, because I would say, ‘What’s the point?….They’re going to be on the street again next week,’” she said. Her son’s death wrecked her family, she said, adding, “It does get easier, but it’s there every day, every minute.”
In the early 1980s, drunken-driving crashes killed more than 20,000 people a year. By 2010, that number had fallen to around 10,000 thanks to high-profile public-education campaigns by groups like MADD, tougher laws, and aggressive enforcement that included sobriety checkpoints and typically yielded well over a million DUI arrests annually.
But during the 2010s, drunken-driving deaths hovered between roughly 10,000 and 11,000 a year, while DUI arrests steadily fell. One factor, said Adkins of the Governors Highway Safety Association, was many officers’ reluctance to sign up for enforcement stints on weekend nights, even with the enticement of overtime pay.
Then came 2020. Soon after the pandemic began, George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis provoked a nationwide backlash against police, including in the area of traffic stops. “The perception was the public wasn’t supportive of traffic enforcement,” Adkins said.
Manning said MADD supports racially equitable traffic enforcement and sees that as consistent with zero tolerance for hazardous illegal behavior such as drunken driving.
Fell, the veteran researcher, said he initially expected that the pandemic would cut drunken-driving deaths. Not only did fatalities jump, he noted, but the share of deaths involving an impaired driver rose as well—from 28% in 2019 to 30% in 2020 to 31% in 2021.
Recent trends are frustrating, said Glenn Davis, who manages Colorado’s highway-safety office. “We talk so much about numbers and percentages. These are people,” he said.
He pointed to Colorado’s extensive use of ignition interlock systems that require people convicted of DUI to blow into a tube to verify they are sober in order for their car to start. He said the office promotes nondriving options such as Lyft and Uber. And he said new laws and campaigns by groups such as MADD had made roads far safer, until a few years ago.
“Now it seems to be creeping back the wrong way,” Davis said. But he added: “We’re not just going to go, ‘Oh, that’s the way it is.’”