Drunk Driving on the Rise in Southern Utah, But Just How Bad is it?

Something that tends to occur no matter where you are in America is the act of driving under the influence of some kind of substance.

Often labeled under the general term, “drunk driving,” every community has this problem. If alcohol is available, it’s going to happen. If alcohol isn’t available for one reason or another, other substances can easily fill the void.

Let’s take a look at how common DUI incidents are in Southern Utah, focusing mostly on St. George.

Lieutenant Aaron Bergquist from the St. George Police Department managed to provide some statistics on just how common it is for DUIs to occur in St. George.

Lt. Bergquist said, “Ten incidents in one night would be a lot, but it’s not uncommon for us to get four to eight. For this time of year, I would say four to five a night or day is pretty common for just the SGPD.”

Lt. Bergquist said while he doesn’t have a current understanding of the amount of DUIs as a whole for 2023, he did provide some previous statistics mainly before the pandemic in 2020.

Lt. Bergquist said, “The last time I really tracked our department’s DUIs for a whole year, we were usually at about 250 a year. For the state of Utah in 2019, it was about 15,000 a year, so that kind of puts it into perspective for you.

While five DUI incidents a day in St. George sounds like a lot, it’s not quite as bad once you take the rest of the state into consideration. If you’d like to know more about the rising DUI rates in Utah as a whole, then check out Megan Pickett’s informative article on ABC 4 Utah.