‘A good thing:’ Illinois Valley DUIs headed for near-record low

Memorial Day weekend wasn’t exactly a slow one for police. Three people were jailed for domestic battery, and cops rounded up a few more on failure-to-appear warrants.

But drunken-driving arrests? There, police had a slow weekend. The La Salle County Circuit Clerk’s Office reported only three incidences of driving under the influence logged between May 24 and May 26.

Spring Valley had no DUI arrests, and the department’s year-to-date total sits at five, down from seven at Memorial Day 2024. Oglesby police had zero arrests for DUI. Ottawa also had no DUIs (a minor was charged with zero tolerance) despite logging 64 traffic stops over the holiday weekend.

The La Salle County Sheriff’s Office caught two drunken drivers – one of them a repeat offender with a revoked license – and acknowledged the declining number of impaired motorists.

John Dyke, who was recently named deputy sheriff, said the sheriff’s office conducts holiday patrols to ferret out traffic violations and take impaired motorists off the road. Deputies are effective with the former; specialty patrols boost seat belt compliance and cut down on distracted driving. DUI patrols are hit or miss.

“Our DUIs? We may get one,” Dyke said. “Either people are getting smarter or they’re taking Uber.”

Similarly, Peru police had one arrest for DUI.

“In my four decades-plus, I’ve never seen DUI activities as low,” said Lt. Doug Bernabei, spokesman for the Peru Police Department. “This is a good thing. The get-tough approach that started in the early 1980s has no doubt made the roadways much safer. Strict enforcement coupled with designated drivers is working.”

Strict enforcement has indeed worked, but there were societal changes that helped bring DUIs to historic lows in the Illinois Valley.

La Salle County is on pace for 360 arrests in connection with impaired driving. If the pace holds, that would be a 16% increase over last year’s total.

That sounds shocking – until one considers that last year saw a record-low 311 arrests. Twenty years ago, La Salle County would have had that many DUI arrests in the books by Mother’s Day.

Even if this year’s projected 17% jump holds, the 2025 total would be the second lowest on record.

Drunken driving once was a dogged problem in La Salle County. In the 1990s and 2000s, police would nab between 700 and 800 drunken drivers a year. Police had a record 824 DUIs in 2006.

Since then, however, DUIs have steadily tumbled.

As Bernabei pointed out, states began ratcheting up criminal and civil penalties under pressure from victim advocate groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

La Salle County motorists didn’t pay much heed at first. DUI arrests actually climbed between 1996 (the first year circuit clerks adopted a classification, DT, for drunken driving arrests) and 2006, when La Salle County notched a record 824.

But then began a downturn that picked up speed with the Great Recession. Motorists either were without jobs or fearful of losing them, prompting many to steer clear of bars and avoid fines and costs north of $10,000 – and that’s for a first-time offender.

Then, cannabis was legalized, and young motorists embraced it at the expense of alcohol.

Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic emptied the bars and the roads. In 2020, the yearly total slid to 385 – at that time, a record low – and post-pandemic DUIs have hovered around 400 a year.

Diminished or not, one attorney pointed out that La Salle County still averages a DUI per day.

“[The DUI total] is lower, but it’s not diminished to where I’d consider it a minor part of my practice,” said Darrell Seigler, an Ottawa attorney with 46 years of experience. “It’s a major part.”