El Paso County deputies cracking down on DUIs for Memorial Day weekend

It’s a terrifying image: a wrong-way driver crashed head-on with an oncoming semi on I-25 just before the Uintah Street exit. The incident happening early Monday morning, and luckily, no one was seriously injured.

A state trooper saw the driver driving the wrong way at mile marker 139, he then continued to drive four miles before hitting the semi.

The driver of the wrong way vehicle was identified as 30-year-old David Bates. He was arrested for driving under the influence. As we get closer to Memorial Day Weekend, that’s something that El Paso County Sheriff’s Office will be cracking down on.

Sgt. Cliff Porter said, “If you drive in El Paso County and you choose to do that when you are drunk or impaired on drugs, we will find you.”

So far this year in El Paso County, 604 drivers have been arrested for impaired driving. This is nearly double the amount that was arrested this time last year.

“We have made a concerted effort to bring down those fatality numbers,” Porter said. “El Paso County is, unfortunately, leading the state of Colorado in impaired driver fatalities and so we have made a concerted effort to put more deputies on the road, educate those deputies and make sure those deputies are trained and equipped with what they need.”

So what can you expect for this coming weekend?

Porter said, “Expect a lot of cars out there, and expect that maybe you will not recognize [them]; we will be using both marked and unmarked units. We will be using two-man cars.”

So far this year in the state of Colorado, 157 people have been killed out on the roads; 35 of those were in crashes with some sort of impaired driving.