MARYSVILLE – A special team of the Washington State Patrol, formed in November, is on pace to make almost 100 drunken driving arrests each month.
That’s nearly three a night, 21 each week. If the pace continues, more than 1,000 drivers will have been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving by the end of the year, officials said.
The new team is dedicated exclusively to pulling drunken and other impaired drivers off the road.
Since the team was formed, 420 arrests have been made, said trooper Kirk Rudeen, a patrol spokesman.
“The numbers speak for themselves. The results are just tremendous,” he said. “It’s far exceeded our initial expectations.”
Most of the patrolling has been done in Snohomish County, Rudeen said, but the unit also covers Island, Whatcom and Skagit counties.
More than 400 of the arrests to date have been in Snohomish County along I-5, I-405 and Highway 99, he said.
Troopers in the unit, which operates primarily at night, focus on areas where the patrol gets the most complaints about drunken drivers.
The specialized patrols have helped to cut the fatality rate on the roads 25 percent from the same period last year, Rudeen said.
“We’re getting more and more effective at finding and locating impaired drivers and removing them from the road. But it continues to be a real problem,” he said. “That’s why we’re using all the tools in our tool box to find and remove them.
“This is an extremely effective tool.”
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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