DUI statistics for 2011 just released by the Governor's Office of Highway Safety show that DUI arrests are on the rise in Arizona. KVOA out of Tucson reported on the drunk driving numbers, which showed a significant increase in the numbers of impaired driving arrests between 2010 and 2011. For 2011, 27,125 people were arrested for DUI throughout Arizona. In 2010, that number was 19,353. That marks a 40 percent spike in DUI arrests in one year.

Similar increases were shown across the board for all types of impaired driving arrests, including misdemeanor DUI, aggravated DUI and extreme DUI (DUI with blood alcohol content of 0.15 or above). For example, extreme DUI arrests jumped nearly 29 percent from about 5,900 arrests in 2010 to 7,600 in 2011. Aggravated DUI arrests showed a 35 percent increase, with nearly 2,700 arrests in 2011, and misdemeanor DUI arrests increased by 41 percent. Drunk driver arrests of minors under 21 showed the highest increase from nearly 900 to nearly 1,300 -- about a 44 percent jump.

If there was a glimmer of good news, it is that the average blood alcohol content (BAC) concentration of those arrested in 2011 was 0.151, a 0.002 drop from 2010 when the average BAC was 0.153.

In 2011, Arizona law enforcement officials made over 272,000 traffic stops that resulted in the 27,125 DUI arrests. That's one DUI arrest for every 10 Arizona traffic stops. In 2010, the DUI arrest rate was closer to one in 12 traffic stops with only 221,465 traffic stops that year. In comparison, in 2003, only 33,270 traffic stops were made, which resulted in only about 1,200 total DUI arrests.

What this litany of Arizona DUI arrest numbers shows is that the Arizona Highway Patrol, county sheriff's departments, and municipal police departments in Arizona are joining forces to saturate Arizona's roads and highways and crackdown on impaired driving. Arizona DUI laws and penalties are some of the strictest in the nation, making an Arizona DUI arrest particularly challenging to avoid jail time and maintain a driver's license after arrest.


Source

KVOA.com, "Over 27k arrested for DUI in Arizona in 2011," Feb. 6, 2012