Hundreds arrested for DWI this holiday season

The Austin Police Department arrested 230 people for driving while intoxicated during the Christmas and New Year’s Eve no refusal period this year. (No refusal, of course, meaning police will request a search warrant if a driver suspected of DWI declines a sobriety test.) Of those, 82 consented to a breath test, and 32 of those blew a .15 or higher. A small minority consented to a blood test, but more than 100 blood search warrants were issued during the period, which ran from Dec. 15 through Monday. Three arrests involved a child passenger. Over an 18-day period in March, APD arrested 222 people for DWI during no-refusal hours.

This story previously compared this year’s no-refusal numbers with statistics from a 10-day stretch in 2015, and has been updated to include a more appropriate comparison.