Photo by Thaddaeus Lim on Unsplash
This latest report by the California DUI Management Information System presents information and statistics on DUI arrests, convictions, postconviction sanctions, driver license suspension/revocation actions, and on drivers in alcohol-or drug-involved crashes.
⇒ Alcohol-involved crash fatalities decreased by 5.6% in 2018, following an increase of 5.8% in 2017.
⇒Drug-involved crash fatalities decreased by 10.5% in 2018, after an increase of 13.1% in 2017.
⇒Of the total number of crash fatalities in 2018, 32.1% were alcohol-involved, which is lower than the 33.1% in 2017. The percentage of drug-involved fatalities decreased from the prior year's 21.2% to 19.5% in 2018.
⇒In 2018, 10.0% of total crash injuries were alcohol-involved; slightly higher than 9.7% reported for 2017.
DUI Arrests
⇒The DUI arrest rate per 100,000 licensed drivers increased by 2.6% in 2018, following a decline of 6.7% in 2017.
DUI arrests increased by 3.1% in 2018, after decreasing by 5.0% in 2017. DUI arrests have increased for the first time since 2008 and after nine years of a continuous decline.
⇒ The median (midpoint) age of a DUI arrestee in 2018 was 31 years and almost three-quarters (72.7%) of arrestees were age 40 or younger. Less than one percent (0.4%) of all DUI arrestees were juveniles (under age 18) and 4.3% were drivers over age 60.
⇒Males comprised 77.3% of all 2018 DUI arrests, the same as in 2017. The proportion of females among DUI arrests has risen from 10.6% in 1989 to 22.7% in 2018.
⇒ Based on data from the Department of Justice (DOJ), Hispanics (50.2%) were the largest racial/ethnic group among 2018 DUI arrestees, as has been the case each year for over a decade.
Hispanics continued to be arrested at a rate substantially higher than their estimated percentage of California's adult population (36.5% in 2018).
DUI Convictions
⇒ 72.9% of 2017 DUI arrests resulted in convictions for DUI offenses.
⇒ 5.7% of DUI convictions among those arrested in 2017 were driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) convictions. This represents a slight increase from 5.5% among DUI offenders arrested in 2016 which was higher than the 4.7% among DUI offenders arrested in 2015.
⇒Among convicted DUI offenders arrested in 2017, 73.0% were first offenders and 27.0% were repeat offenders (one or more prior convictions within the previous 10 years), unchanged from 2016. The proportion of repeat offenders has decreased considerably since 1989, when it stood at 37%, even though prior DUI convictions are currently retained on record and thus counted longer than in the past (10 years compared to 7 years in 1989).
⇒The median blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of a convicted DUI offender, as reported by law enforcement on Administrative Per Se (APS) forms, was 0.16% in 2017, which is double the California illegal per se BAC limit of 0.08%.
⇒In 2017, 17.6% of DUI arrest cases did not show any corresponding conviction on Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records, higher than the percentage in 2016.
License Suspension/Revocation Actions
⇒The total number of both DMV APS preconviction and DUI postconviction suspension or revocation actions in 2018 was relatively unchanged from 2017, following a declining trend of the prior 8 consecutive years.
⇒In 2018, 117,535 APS license actions were taken. Of these actions, 73.5% were first-offender actions (including “zero tolerance” actions taken for drivers under age 21) and 26.5% were repeat-offender actions.
Drivers in Crashes Involving Alcohol and Drugs
⇒While the number of alcohol-involved fatalities declined by about 9% over the past 23 years, the number of drug-involved fatalities increased by about 179% over the same time period.
Some of the increase in the number of fatalities reported as drug-involved over this time period may be, in part, associated with an increase in training and the ability of California law enforcement to detect and report drug involvement in fatal crashes in recent years.
⇒Of all 2017 DUI arrests, 21.0% were associated with a reported traffic crash, like in 2016. Of 2017 DUI arrests, 8.3% were associated with crashes involving injuries or fatalities, relatively unchanged from 8.2% in 2016.
⇒In 2017, over three-fourths (77.6%) of drivers in alcohol-and drug-involved fatal crashes had no prior DUI or alcohol-or drug-related reckless driving conviction. In contrast, the majority (59.9%) of drivers in alcohol- and drug-involved injury crashes had at least one prior DUI or alcohol-or drug-related reckless driving conviction.
