Updated on: 11/11/2019
Of the Washington State Patrol’s 43 DUI arrests over St. Patrick’s Day weekend, one seemed particularly more ironic than the rest; a 26-year-old woman’s Dodge Stratus was blocking the entrance to the King County Jail Sunday morning when she was questioned upon suspicion of DUI and later arrested. According to Washington State Patrol trooper Julie Startup, “the trooper recognized signs of possible intoxication and performed an investigation for DUI eventually placing the driver in custody.”Washington State Patrol had focused extra efforts on the St. Patrick’s Day weekend as part of the Target Zero program, an anti-drunk driving campaign funded by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. The woman involved in this case, however, made the WSP’s job relatively easy by pulling over to search for her cell phone in front of the jail house while she was intoxicated.
Drunk Driving Statistics
- In 2010, 170 people died in alcohol-related car accidents in Washington State – that’s approximately 1 fatality every 2.1 days.
- 37 percent of all traffic deaths in Washington State involved a DUI in 2010.