Driving under the influence (DUI) continues to be a major cause of car accidents throughout the country. Drivers who are intoxicated have reduced reflexes and decision-making skills, which can impact their ability to operate a vehicle safely.

As the state with the largest population in the U.S., California has some of the highest DUI numbers in the country. Statistics for 2010 to 2020 create an interesting picture of the DUI trends in the Golden State. 

Quick Facts & Statistics

• The DUI arrest rate per 100,000 licensed drivers decreased by 21.5% in 2020, following a decrease of 3.2% in 2019. While the last decade has seen a fairly steady decline in the DUI arrest rate, the much more substantial reduction observed in 2020 is clearly linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated shutdown.
• In 2020, alcohol-involved crash fatalities increased by 7.6% and drug-involved crash fatalities increased by 28.9%. These statistics are particularly notable considering that fewer drivers were on the road compared to a typical year.
• Of the total number of crash fatalities in 2020, 31.8% were alcohol-involved, the same as in 2019. The percentage of drug-involved fatalities increased from the prior year's 21.4% to 25.8% in 2020.
• In 2019, 11.4% of total crash injuries were alcohol-involved, an increase from 10.2% reported for 2019.

Arrests and Convictions

• The median (midpoint) age of a DUI arrestee in 2020 was 31 years and almost three-quarters (72.8%) of arrestees were age 40 or younger. Less than one percent (0.5%) of all DUI arrestees were juveniles (under age 18), whereas 4.3% were drivers over age 60.
• Males comprised 78.2% of all 2020 DUI arrests, a modest increase from 2019 (see Table 3a). The proportion of females among DUI arrests has risen from 10.6% in 1989 to 21.8% in 2020.
• Based on data from the Department of Justice (DOJ), Hispanic drivers (53.6%) were the largest racial/ethnic group among 2020 DUI arrestees, as has been the case each year for over a decade. Hispanic individuals continued to be arrested at a rate substantially higher than their estimated percentage of California's adult population (37.3% in 2020). 
• 68.9% of 2019 DUI arrests resulted in convictions for DUI offenses.
• 5.6% of DUI convictions among those arrested in 2019 were driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) convictions. This represents a decrease from 2018, the first after consecutive increases the previous three years.
• Among convicted DUI offenders arrested in 2019, 72.8% were first offenders and 27.2% were repeat offenders (one or more prior convictions within the previous 10 years), slightly lower than 27.5% in 2018. The proportion of repeat offenders has decreased considerably since 1989, when it stood at 37%, even though prior DUI convictions are currently retained on record, and thus counted, longer than in the past (10 years compared to 7 years in 1989).
• The median blood alcohol concentration (BAC) among convicted 2019 DUI offenders, as reported by law enforcement on Administrative Per Se (APS) forms, was 0.16%, which is double the California illegal per se BAC limit of 0.08%.

It is important to first note that 2020 was the first year of the pandemic in the United States, so much of California was locked down or engaging in social distancing. This greatly reduced the number of vehicles on the road for most of the year, creating an outlier in 2020 statistics.

With that in mind, according to the 2022 Annual Report of the California DUI Management Information System from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), one of the most striking trends of this decade involved DUI arrests and convictions. 

The total number of arrests in 2010 was just short of 200,000. Then, the number of arrests decreased significantly every year until 2017, when it plateaued at roughly 125,000.

Convictions unsurprisingly followed a similar trend. The DUI conviction rate was roughly 73% for the first half of the decade. It dropped a few percentage points during the latter half of the decade. This means there were just under 150,000 convictions in 2010 and almost 90,000 convictions in 2019.

First-Time Offenders

Another interesting trend apparent in the 2022 report involves first-time offenders. Throughout the decade, first-time offenders represented roughly 33% to 75% of all offenders. As the number of offenders decreased, so did the number of first-time offenders.

Repeat Offenders

Conversely, the trend line is very different for offenders who have committed four or more offenses. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of penalized offenders stayed relatively static at roughly 2,500 to 2,600. The number of offenders penalized each year then hovered around 2,000 from 2013 to 2019. 

This suggests that chronic offenders continue to engage in DUIs even when DUIs are otherwise on the decline.

Juvenile Offenders

Another key conviction fact from this decade involved juveniles. According to the 2022 report, in 2010, 1533 juveniles had their license suspended due to a DUI. That number dropped every year after, often substantially. By 2019, only 298 juveniles had their license suspended — a roughly 80% drop.

Crash Fatalities

Based on these statistics, you'd probably think that DUI-related crash fatalities decreased by about 40% between 2010 and 2020. Unfortunately, the statistics from the DMV don't reflect this conclusion.

According to the California DMV’s DUI Summary Statistics for 1980 to 2020, between 2010 and 2020, DUI-related fatal crashes stayed fairly consistent at around 1,100 per year. If anything, the number of crashes increased slightly over that time, but only by about 10% at most.

However, while the raw numbers remained static, the percentage of alcohol-related fatal crashes compared to total fatal crashes decreased during the decade. Alcohol-related fatal crashes made up about 40% of all California fatal crashes. 

By 2020, that percentage decreased to slightly 30%. The trend line shows a relatively consistent decrease in that percentage throughout the decade.

Furthermore, by breaking down the statistics of the DUI summary in more detail, another trend appears. The total number of fatal accidents involving only alcohol started at approximately 700 in 2010 and increased by about 20% over the decade. However, the number of fatal accidents involving only drugs nearly doubled during that same period.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that while DUI-related fatal accidents dropped slightly as a percentage of total accidents, most of that decrease was related to alcohol-based accidents. Drug-related accidents dropped in the middle of the decade but then rebounded sharply in 2020.

Crash Injuries

According to the 2022 report, the statistics for injuries in crashes do not generally correlate with crash fatalities. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of alcohol-related crashes resulting in non-fatal injuries stayed consistent at 10% of all injury accidents, and actual values were between 23,000 and 27,000.

The 2022 report shows the same trend is true for drug-related crashes with non-fatal injuries. Those accidents represented about 1% of all injury crashes and averaged around 2,800. The one outlier occurred in 2020 when there were 3,450 drug-related crashes with injuries, representing 1.7% of the total.

The other fact revealed by these statistics is that drug-related crashes result in a comparable number of fatalities as alcohol-related crashes, but the same isn't true for crashes with non-fatal injuries. Alcohol use is roughly ten times as likely to result in a non-fatal injury as drug use is.

Continuing to analyze these numbers and trends can help local governments and drivers alike take the right steps to keep California roads safe.