Heat Is On: DUI Enforcement Halts 10,000 Drivers in 2017

The Heat Is On campaign completed 2017 with two heightened DUI enforcement periods surrounding seasonal holiday parties and the ringing in of the New Year. During the 10-day Holiday Parties enforcement, officers arrested 656 impaired drivers—an increase from the 568 arrests during the same enforcement period last year.

Leading up to the New Year's Eve enforcement period—occurring from Dec. 29 to Jan. 2—CDOT produced a series of short video vignettes to accompany a standard press release. The visually vibrant and stylized videos were then disseminated on social media leading to the New Year’s Weekend.
View the vignettes.

The New Year's enforcement period saw 366 impaired drivers cut their celebrations short with a DUI arrest and rounded out a busy year of The Heat Is On enforcement DUI citations. During the 14 enforcement stretches, law enforcement arrested 10,350 drivers for DUI. By comparison, in 2016, The Heat Is On campaign arrested 7,279 drivers over 12 enforcement periods.

Preliminary data indicates that of the 41 statewide road fatalities last January 2017, 17 (41 percent) involved suspected impaired drivers, highlighting the necessity for year-round DUI enforcement and the importance of The Heat Is On heightened enforcement. The first of 14 The Heat Is On enforcement stretches in 2018, the 10-day Winter Blitz campaign began on Jan. 19 and was active through Jan. 29.