Impaired driving crashes rise statewide

OAKLAND COUNTY — Impaired driving crashes across Michigan are on the rise, a troubling statistic released in a study from Bridge Michigan, which also found that police across the state are not making as many arrests for drunken driving as they have in the past.

The study found fatal alcohol and drug-related crashes have risen by 40% across Michigan, with alcohol-and-drug related fatalities up statewide and in many counties — including Oakland, Macomb, and Wayne.

According to the Michigan State Police annual drunken driving audit, in 2023 the state had nearly 10,500 crashes where a driver was found to be impaired, resulting in 454 deaths and more than 6,300 injuries.

While the number of impaired crashes has increased, drunken driving arrests across Michigan have dropped 28% from 2014 to 2023, declining in 67 of the state’s 83 counties since 2014, according to Bridge. In Oakland County, drunken-driving arrests from 2014 to 2023 were down 20%. They were down 16% in Wayne and 15% in Macomb, according to annual state drunken driving audits.

“If you look at COVID, traffic enforcement went down dramatically because we obviously wanted a lot less face-to-face interpersonal contact … but what went up during COVID was the feeling of isolation, anxiety, depression,” Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said. “Obviously, self-medication comes in a variety of forms — including alcohol and drugs — so you have a recipe for less enforcement and higher consumption of alcoholic drugs, which, obviously, if you do the math on that, leads to more crashes.”

The disparity between crashes and arrests, experts say, correlates with fewer police officers and less traffic enforcement, a recipe for more dangerous driving.

Bouchard confirmed there are a lot fewer police officers on the streets around Michigan than there were 20 years ago, including in Oakland County.

“Every agency is struggling with their budgets and they’re struggling with recruiting and retention as well,” he explained. “Right now, we have 40 vacancies in the Sheriff’s Office alone, so if you have less people, you’re going to have less eyes, and obviously enforcement.”

With limited resources and many police departments shorthanded, there just aren’t as many officers available to handle traffic enforcement as there were in the past.

“If you’re shorthanded and you’re going from call to call, you don’t have time to assign people to work in high-crash locations, because they can’t park there and do select enforcement, they have to answer 911 calls, first and foremost, and high-priority calls,” Bouchard explained.

“If you can get back the staffing levels, then you can have selective enforcement assignments without degrading your response capability,” he added. “We have to be able to respond to everything.”

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office has been working hard to fill its vacancies, recently adding a dedicated recruitment specialist whose job is to focus on how to get more people to apply, a more diverse applicant pool, and a broader community to hear about the opportunities in law enforcement. The Sheriff’s Office, Bouchard explained, has also increased its visits to high schools, and other locations, to expose students and other potential future employees to what a career in law enforcement might look like via cadets.

“We’ve also dropped the age to hire into a number of positions — including in the jail — to 18. You can go into the military at 18, so we have made some changes in our tactics, in terms of broadening our net, if you will, and changing some of the components to what may have been a hurdle to hire,” he said.

Southfield Police Chief Elvin Barren said that “at this time, the Southfield Police Department is fortunate not to be experiencing hiring concerns. With the recent retirements and separations, our current staffing is on par with our recruiting expectations. We are planning to hire an additional 13 police officers over the course of the next 18 months.”

The Southfield Police Department currently has 118 officers.

Barren said that “regardless of our staffing levels, we still have a mission of public safety to include enforcement of those individuals who choose to drive while impaired.”

“The expectation of a police department, whether your numbers are high or low, the expectation of the police chief is that when the officers out in the community, they should be doing constitutional policing, meaning, if they see an individual whose driving patterns are reflective of impaired driving, then that traffic stop should be made, and that investigation should take place. And as a result of the investigation, if that person is determined to be driving while impaired, the person should be arrested and processed. That’s the expectation of most police departments, which really should be any police department, but I’m speaking for Southfield. That’s my expectation, whether our numbers are high or low.”

Barren shared data for impaired driving in Southfield.

“I go back to 2022, to today’s date, our numbers remain pretty consistent, where in 2022 we had 71 arrests for impaired driving. In 2023, we had 85 arrests for impaired driving. And as of Aug. 2, we had 45 arrests for impaired driving, just being a little bit over halfway through the year … so I anticipate these trends continue, we’ll end up somewhere between that 70 and 80 mark again,” Barren said.

“When you look at the fatal crashes comparatively speaking for those same time frames, that really went down since 2022, when in 2022 had nine fatal impaired driving-related crashes, three in 2023 and as of today’s date again, 2024 there have been four, and those incidents range from alcohol to marijuana to psychedelic mushrooms to cocaine. We do our post-accident investigation. In addition to officers on routine patrol monitoring patterns of behavior, we also partner with a Traffic Improvement Association, TIA, where I’m a member of the board of directors. Through the TIA, which is supported by the state of Michigan, we are provided a number of grant opportunities to enhance our enforcement in areas like seatbelt enforcement, speeding enforcement, to include campaigns such as the impaired driving enforcement.”

Barren explained that the areas Southfield police deploy to are areas where traffic accidents occur at a high frequency, according to data mandated by the state. He added that the state comes up with dates based on the trends in Michigan when there’s been a high volume of accidents, such as during the holiday season and as the weather changes. Barren shared that the Michigan State Police handle the accidents and the enforcement on the freeways.

“Certainly, we will respond to assist them,” he said. “There may be a crash on the freeway that may be in the boundaries of Southfield. Michigan State Police will handle that investigation, but we may send cars to provide assistance by way of safety for the motorists on the road as the investigation continues and for those officers conducting an investigation. But again, Michigan Police compiles that data for freeways and manages those accidents whether they’re fatal or not.”

Barren emphasized the importance of making sure that people have a safe way home by having a sober designated driver or utilizing a ride share.

“Our society, the world, has changed,” he said. “It’s allowed for individuals who want to go out and party and indulge in different activities, the opportunity to take advantage of ride shares. You get your Ubers, you get your Lyfts, you get all these different avenues to return home safely at night after having good times with your friends and family, even during the holiday months. You even have some of the tow truck companies who will volunteer to take people home, and that’s a huge benefit as well.

“So we just encourage people to, No. 1, understand that if you are responsible for a fatal collision, you were driving while impaired, the consequences are severe, as it relates to jail time, fines, and then the psychological impact on it on that person for a lifetime, knowing that your poor decision took the life of an innocent person or innocent family; in some cases, whole families have been killed in one single car accident.”