Only one person was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence on the North Olympic Peninsula during the Christmas weekend, the state Traffic Safety Commission said.
The one arrest was in relation to a single-car collision on state Highway 19, said Julie Furlong, spokeswoman for the commission.
“Maybe something we’re doing is working,” Furlong said.
Officers will be out in force on New Year’s weekend through Monday, continuing extra patrols begun on Thanksgiving.
Officers from the Port Angeles, Port Townsend and Sequim police departments; the Clallam and Jefferson County sheriff’s offices; and the State Patrol are participating in the patrols as part of the state’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan to cut traffic fatalities to zero by the year 2030.
During last year’s holiday season, from Thanksgiving to Jan. 2, officers in Clallam and Jefferson counties on routine and extra patrols arrested 49 people suspected of driving under the influence.
Over this year’s Christmas holiday weekend, State Patrol troopers across the state arrested 161 drivers suspected of being impaired by drugs or alcohol.
That’s down from 194 arrests during the same period in 2010.
“We’re going in the right direction, but these numbers are still too high,” said State Patrol Chief John R. Batiste.
“There’s just no excuse for putting yourself and others at risk by driving while impaired.”
Troopers arrested 20,130 for investigation of driving under the influence from Jan. 1 through Nov. 30, 2011.
“That’s up about 1 percent from the same period in 2010 but falls within a normal range of year-to-year variance,” Batiste said.
Statewide, the State Patrol reported three fatalities on the highways during the 2011 Christmas weekend, with drugs or alcohol suspected in one of them, the death of a 47-year-old Chehalis man on state Highway 2 near the Hewitt Avenue trestle in Snohomish County.
Troopers believe an impaired driver went around barricades and drove onto a pedestrian walkway, killing one man and injuring another.
A 9-year-old Clinton girl was killed last Sunday when a tree fell on the vehicle in which she was riding in Island County. Troopers found no evidence of alcohol involvement in the collision.
The Auburn Police Department is investigating a car-pedestrian fatality that occurred Monday morning on Auburn Way South.
There were no fatal collisions during Christmas weekend in 2010, Batiste said.
But in all of 2010, 188 people in the state died as a result of a crash involving a drunken driver, according to the Traffic Safety Commission.
Between 2006 and 2010, the five-year total was 1,191.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
