San Mateo County's annual DUIs up in some cities, but not New Year’s night

“People are really good about planning to get rides on evenings where there are big events. They’re planning their outings and planning to get rides, and they’re doing a good job,” Belmont police Lt. Pete Lotti said. “And we make it a point of emphasis to be on the lookout for drunk checks.”

In Burlingame, there has only been one DUI arrest during the night of New Year’s Eve over the last three years. Burlingame police Lt. David Perna said there seem to be fewer New Year’s Eve events in the city since the pandemic, and there is also more awareness of a heightened police presence. Redwood City didn’t have any DUIs, according to its arrest log, and neither did South San Francisco or Foster City.

“When I was new in the early 2000s, everyone was making a bunch of arrests [on New Year’s],” Foster City police Lt. David Orlando said. “As Lyft and Uber have become ubiquitous, those numbers have dwindled.”

But even for some cities that didn’t see DUI arrests that night — such as Foster City and Burlingame — there has been an increase in the number of DUIs throughout 2024 compared to 2023.

San Mateo, which had three DUI arrests during the night of New Year’s, has also seen the total number of annual DUI arrests increase steadily over the last several years.

While law enforcement stays on higher alert during holidays like New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day, Perna said that drunk driving seems to occur more arbitrarily since COVID-19, and more residents have started to expect heightened police presence on certain nights of the year, further incentivizing them to call a Lyft or Uber ride compared to other nights of the year.

“It’s so sporadic. It used to be more reliable, like on holidays, but now COVID really changed things,” Perna said. “With people working from home or hybrid, we could have a DUI on a Tuesday, where in the past that was unusual. It’s hard to predict.”

The annual increase could also be explained by more funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety grants, which help provide police departments with staff dedicated to DUI-related patrolling, which typically boost the amount of arrests. In Foster City, where the number of DUIs increased by about 60% between 2023 and 2024, Orlando said that it’s more likely attributable to higher staffing levels, rather than a higher rate of drinking and driving.

“Anecdotally, we had more staffing this year,” Orlando said. “That’s what I would attribute it to.”