DUI arrests on holidays: Where St. Patrick’s Day ranks

CLEVELAND (WJW) – The FOX 8 I-Team has uncovered a danger on your highways expected this weekend, and it happens on St. Patrick’s Day more than almost any other holiday.

We found St. Patrick’s Day is one of the biggest holidays of the year for drinking and driving. In fact, we found it almost at the top of the list.

So many of you go to a St. Patrick’s Day parade, but those events are just a piece of an all-day party.

We checked the number of people arrested by the Ohio State Highway Patrol for impaired driving on every major holiday. Records show, last year, St. Patrick’s Day had the second-highest number of cases.

Of course, we’ve shown you the impact of drunk drivers on your highways year-round. So, we took a closer look at this.

We reviewed impaired driving cases on holidays from Memorial Day, the night before Thanksgiving and Christmas week.

Last year, troopers arrested the most impaired drivers on New Year’s Eve, 89. Following that, we saw 78 arrested on St. Patrick’s Day and 74 on July 4.

We also checked back on what happened in 2022. That year, Saint Patrick’s Day ranked fourth in the number of these cases of any holiday. Then, last year, the number of people caught driving drunk or high on St. Patrick’s Day spiked up even more.

“What that means is we have to be out there, be visible on the roads and do the job we were hired to do,” said Sgt. Bridget Matt.

She said troopers plan extra patrols and operations targeting drunk drivers for St. Patrick’s Day.

“You know, Ed, the thing that surprises me the most is that, in this day and age, we still have people going out there and making the irresponsible decision to drink and drive,” Sgt. Matt said.

Remember, year-round, we see drunk drivers going the wrong way, crashing and terrorizing your highways.

Just this week, a drunk driver went to prison for leaving a local construction worker with permanent injuries.

The victim told a judge, “I haven’t been able to go back to work to do the job that I love to do because I can’t really walk.”

While the state patrol drunk driving arrest records shed new light on what’s happening on holidays, those numbers only reflect enforcement by troopers. The actual number of cases would be much higher adding in local police cases.