More than a quarter of the suspected drunken drivers arrested over the weekend by a DUI task force were taken into custody in Tempe.
On Friday and Saturday, 120 people were arrested on suspicion of operating a vehicle with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of .08 percent, Tempe police spokesman Steve Carbajal said.
Of the people arrested, 37 were arrested by the Tempe Police Department, Carbajal said.
“Any time we can get DUI drivers off the road, it’s a good thing,” he said. “The fact that we got 120 DUI drivers off the road in a course of two nights is exceptional.”
Carbajal said the high number of arrests could be attributed in part to last Friday and Saturday being the last weekend before the start of the semester.
Tempe police — along with Chandler, Scottsdale, the state Department of Public Safety and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office — participated in the anti-DUI effort Friday and Saturday nights. Peoria Police also participated on Friday.
Arizona already has some of the toughest DUI laws in the country, which makes it a surprise to sculpting senior Jessie Nahom that people would drink and drive inside the state’s borders.
“It still kind of blows my mind that people even do drink and drive,” Nahom said. “Especially in Tempe, where there is a cab on every street corner.”
Even with the weekend’s arrests, Nahom said she doesn’t feel any safer because people are still going to drink and drive.
But first-year mechanical engineering graduate student Amid Abraham, who rides a bicycle as his primary mode of transportation, said he definitely feels safer knowing that people who are drinking and driving were taken off the streets.
“I’ve noticed many times when I’m out, sometimes late, cars whizzing by really fast not looking at the traffic lights,” Abraham said.
Abraham and Nahom both said students’ drinking seems to be one of the larger problems around campus.
“I think drunk driving has an essential need for attention,” Nahom said.
Police are planning a similar crackdown for the Labor Day weekend, Carbajal said.
Reach the reporter at ryan.calhoun@asu.edu.
