CHP's Holiday DUI Arrests Less than Half of Last Year's

Four suspected drunken drivers were arrested by Marin officers of the California Highway Patrol over the Fourth of July holiday, down from 10 last year, the CHP announced Thursday.

In addition, no collisions during the span from 6:01 p.m. Tuesday through midnight Wednesday resulted in a fatality — although there was one DUI-related crash that was a close call.

A 60-year-old San Rafael man was jailed on suspicion of drunken driving after crashing his Toyota Prius along Highway 1 in West Marin and injuring his passenger, CHP Officer Eric Hohmeister said. While driver Stephen Vance was arrested and taken to Marin County Jail, his passenger, 70-year-old Lisa Vance, was taken to Marin General Hospital with neck pain.

DUI arrests were down throughout the Bay Area over the Independence Day holiday, authorities said Thursday. In San Francisco, police and California Highway Patrol officers arrested 13 DUI suspects over the two-day period on Tuesday and Wednesday, 25 percent below last year's total of 31 over four days.

The decrease might have been because of the holiday falling mid-week this year, but could also be attributed to the outreach campaign by authorities to curb drunken driving, said Jan Ford, spokeswoman for Avoid anti-DUI campaigns coordinated between local law enforcement agencies.

"It was a mid-week holiday, but we've been sending out a lot of officers and just not finding as many impaired drivers," Ford said. "I think that people are getting the message of driving stone-cold sober every single time."

In Santa Clara County, only 34 people were arrested for DUI over the two-day period, compared to 81 arrests during the first two days of the same holiday in 2011, according to county law enforcement officials.

In the North Bay, authorities in Solano County arrested just six people for drunk driving, compared to nine arrests during the same period last year.

The state Office of Traffic Safety funds the Avoid campaigns through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

— Bay City News Service contributed to this report.