Intoxicated drivers, possibly feeling the buzz from holiday parties, took to the roads in droves over the weekend in Durango, bumping into guardrails, nearly hitting pedestrians and screwing up the alternating procedure in the McDonald’s drive-thru.
The Durango Police Department made 13 arrests Saturday and Sunday for drunken driving – “an unusually high weekend,” said Lt. Ray Shupe, spokesman for the department. The Colorado State Patrol and the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office made another six arrests.
“We just like to remind drivers, especially during the holidays when they’re going to Christmas parties and New Year’s Eve parties and things like that, to really pay attention to what they’re doing and designate a driver,” Shupe said. “There are so many other ways to get home versus driving a car.”
At least four of the arrests made during the 48-hour period in Durango were the result of routine traffic stops, in which the officer found the driver to be intoxicated, Shupe said.
The others involved unusual or reckless driving behavior – including some that resulted in wrecks.
Perhaps the most surprising DUI arrest occurred at 11:09 p.m. Saturday on Florida Road near Chapman Hill, where a police officer stopped a vehicle on a routine traffic offense. Another driver passing by pulled over in front of the car that was stopped, believing he was the one being stopped, Shupe said.
“He was on a different traffic stop, and that vehicle pulled in front of all of it,” Shupe said. “... So the officer went up to contact the driver, and that’s when they realized he was intoxicated.”
Another unusual DUI occurred at 11:36 p.m. Sunday in the McDonald’s drive-thru, where a drunken woman apparently didn’t yield properly in the alternating lanes of the drive-thru.
“I think they got mixed up in there, cut somebody off, and had the wrong order,” Shupe said. “It was a big mess.”
It wasn’t the only disturbance this weekend to result in a DUI arrest. Police responded to a fight early Sunday in the 1300 block of Main Avenue and stopped a drunken man as he was preparing to drive away, Shupe said.
A few of the weekend’s drunken driver incidents resulted in crashes or close calls. There were no reports of injuries.
One incident was called in by a driver who witnessed another driver hit a guardrail and keep driving in the 1000 block of Goeglein Gulch Road. Police located the vehicle and made an arrest. A second was witnessed by a police officer who saw a black Chevy truck blow through a stop sign at Eighth Street and East Second Avenue, nearly striking a woman in the crosswalk, Shupe said. A third occurred Saturday night at the La Plata County Fairgrounds when a drunken driver hit a parked car while backing out of a parking spot, he said.
Two drivers passed out inside their cars with the engine running, which is considered drunken driving, even if the car is parked, Shupe said. One of those occurred at 3:37 a.m. Sunday in a hotel parking lot in the 800 block of Camino del Rio. The other occurred at 4:30 a.m. Saturday in the west 100 block of 11th Street. Someone reported a car parked illegally, and when officers responded, they found the driver passed out with the engine running, he said.
All of the arrests occurred during a typical weekend with no extra DUI enforcement in the city, Shupe said. But the police department will have extra patrols for New Year’s Eve. Shupe encouraged residents figure out plans for getting home before using alcohol or marijuana.
“It just takes one tragedy to change somebody’s life forever, either their own or the lives of a family of somebody else,” he said. “It’s not something to be messing around with.”
shane@durangoherald.com
