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A study of drunk driving arrests by state reveals Wisconsin is not number one. That could come as a surprise, given the state’s reputation for drunk driving, and the fact that in 2018, 159 people died and more than 3,000 were injured in alcohol-related crashes here.
But the new study by U.S. Drug Test Centers found that Wisconsin’s per capita rate of just over 425 drunk driving arrests per 100,000 people put it at number 10, behind South and North Dakota, Wyoming, North Carolina, Mississippi, New Mexico, Maine, Washington and Alaska.
In 2018, the national average was 330 arrests per 100,000. An estimated 30 people are killed in drunk-driving crashes every day in the U.S.
U.S. law enforcement agencies reported more than 1.01 million arrests for DUI in 2018, according to FBI data, which is a decline from 2014 levels but represents a modest 1% increase from 2017.
Men are far more likely than women to be arrested for DUI. In arrests where the suspect’s sex was reported, men accounted for nearly 3 in 4 DUI arrests in 2018. However, both men and women have seen their DUI arrest totals fall over the past 10 years.