Utah's Halloween DUI Crackdown charges 124 drivers

Prepared for boisterous Halloween festivities, the Utah Highway Patrol made 124 DUI-related arrests on Saturday to help keep trick-or-treaters safe.

According to information released by the Utah Department of Public Safety, law enforcement officers stopped 1,792 vehicles in Utah from 11 p.m. Saturday night until 3 a.m. Sunday morning. Of the 124 people arrested, eleven were released with a DUI citation, and the remaining 113 were booked into jail, NBC affiliate KSL reports.

"We feel it was really successful," said Sergeant Jeff Nigbur of the Department of Public Safety. "There's a reason we're doing this. It's not to bother the public, or pull lots of people over. Really, truly it's to try to save lives."

The Department of Public Safety reported that when Halloween falls on a Friday or Saturday night, alcohol-related deaths increase about 40 percent.
This year, no one died in an alcohol-related accident statewide, and there were no alcohol-related crashes in the Salt Lake County area.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the average alcohol-impaired driver arrested on the highway has a blood-alcohol concentration of .20 percent, which is over double the legal limit in most states. The BAC figure amounts to 14 beers in 4 hours for a 180-pound man.