El Paso Among Tops in the Nation in Drunk Driving Arrests

If you’ve lived here any number of years then you know El Pasoans love to party.

Unfortunately, El Pasoans also love to get their drink on and then drive. So much so that when the legal-industry software site SmartAdvocate broke down the stats, it determined the Sun City had the 5th highest number of drunk-driving arrests among the top 30 most populated cities in the country over the last decade.

El Paso tallied 27,030 driving while intoxicated arrests from 2009-2018 based on FBI crime data. That’s more drunk driving arrests per every 100,000 residents than Houston, Dallas, and even Los Angeles. Only Phoenix, San Antonio, Austin, and Las Vegas had higher amounts of drunk driving arrests in that 10-year time frame.

This study comes on the heels of even more unfortunate numbers released in a separate study in March by online auto insurance referral service AutoInsuranceEZ, which showed that 48 percent of traffic deaths in El Paso County involve an impaired driver -- the highest percentage among the largest counties in the U.S.