Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

June 30, 2012

Are fewer people driving drunk in Maine?

An analysis of court data in Maine points to a 25 percent drop in arrests over 10 years, but that trend might reflect cutbacks in patrols.

By David Hench dhench@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

As police crack down on drunken driving this Fourth of July holiday week, an analysis of court data shows a 25 percent drop in the number of people charged with driving drunk in Maine over the past 10 years.

Police and anti-drunken-driving advocates aren't sure why the numbers are down.

Some say fewer people are taking the chance of driving under the influence because of tough penalties and tough talk. Others say the decline reflects cutbacks in law enforcement and increasing demands on officers, who have less time to patrol for drunken drivers.

Portland police Sgt. Scot Mattox, the department's expert on the issue, said, "I think staffing has been reduced, and with reduced staffing you get a cascading effect of less time for pro-active activity and fewer officers to make arrests."

Mattox also sees "a cultural shift" away from drinking and driving. "We see a lot more taxis in the Old Port, for example, than we did 10 years ago," he said.

The Portland Press Herald's analysis of data from the Maine Administrative Office of the Courts shows that the number of drunken-driving charges brought by Maine police dropped from 8,029 in 2001 to 6,026 in 2011.

During that period, the number of licensed drivers in the state grew 9 percent, to 1,014,826 by last year, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

The total number of crashes involving alcohol in Maine, including those in which a driver was drinking but not over the legal limit, went down 28 percent, from 1,752 in 2002 to 1,265 in 2010, according to data from the Maine Department of Transportation.

Col. Robert Williams, chief of the Maine State Police, said that when he was working on the roads in the 1980s, he could pull over a half-dozen drunken drivers on a single Friday or Saturday night. "Now, you can be working hard and only get one in a weekend," he said.

"Over the last 20 years or more, there has been such an emphasis on (drunken driving), I don't think it's as prevalent as it used to be," Williams said. "People who socialize a lot, they tell me they know police are looking, they know the consequences are severe and they either make arrangements (for someone else to drive) or take a taxi."

Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce said his department has issued slightly fewer drunken-driving citations, but aggressive deputies are still keeping their numbers up.

Maj. William King of the York County Sheriff's Office said he believes that the stigma and penalties associated with drunken-driving arrests are leading more people to arrange for designated drivers.

Nationwide, the number of drunken-driving fatalities dropped 23 percent, from 13,290 in 2001 to 10,228 in 2010, mirroring a decline in the total number of fatal crashes, according to statistics provided by Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Police say that could reflect fewer drunk drivers, but it may be attributed in part to safer vehicles and even improvements in emergency medicine.

In Maine, drunken-driving fatalities went from 38 in 2002 to a high of 62 in 2007, then dropped to 35 last year, according to the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety.

There were no alcohol-related fatalities in Maine from July 3-5 last year. There were three in that period in 2010 and two in 2009. Last year, Labor Day was the worst holiday period for fatal drunken-driving crashes, with five.

The drop in drunken-driving charges may reflect competition for police officers' time, said Williams, chief of the state police.

For example, the Portland Police Department once staffed a van that helped officers test suspected drunken drivers, but that program lapsed as priorities changed.

(Continued on page 2)

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