Department of Public Safety’s online dashboard shows when and where DWI arrests occur

A 20-year-old woman from Hopkins slammed into a concrete barrier Wednesday night, causing her vehicle to roll over and block the left lanes of westbound Interstate 94 near the Lowry Hill Tunnel.

The driver suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the downtown Minneapolis crash, which occurred just before 11:30 p.m. But she had been drinking, registered a blood-alcohol content of 0.13% and was arrested, said Lt. Michael Lee of the State Patrol.

She was one of 35 motorists picked up by law enforcement officers across the state on Wednesday for impaired and drunken driving, according to a Driving While Impaired Dashboard maintained by the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA).

The BCA created the dashboard in 2016 to help law enforcement officials identify trends in crashes and arrests related to impaired driving. It also helps them determine where to allocate resources for enforcement efforts and come up with ways to prevent driving while impaired and reduce crashes and fatalities.

Now that information, which had been kept in-house, is available online for anyone to see.

“We’re bringing the data together in a way that we hope will help both law enforcement and the public gain a better understanding of the impact of impaired driving in Minnesota communities,” said BCA Superintendent Drew Evans. “This also brings important data to prevention efforts.”

As of Thursday afternoon, more than 23,220 motorists in Minnesota had been cited for driving while impaired this year, according to the dashboard, which is updated in real time.

The dashboard doesn’t give the names of offenders, but it enables users to search statewide for DWI arrests and DWI-related crashes. Results can be filtered by date; type of incident; time of day; day of the week; gender and age of driver; city, county or township; and the arresting agency or type of agency — State Patrol, the county sheriff, local police or the Department of Natural Resources.

A quick search Thursday showed there were 4,651 DWI arrests since Jan. 1 in Hennepin County, the most of any county in the state. The dashboard showed a heavy concentration of arrests in downtown Minneapolis, along I-94 between downtown and Brooklyn Center, and along Interstate 35W between downtown and Crosstown Hwy. 62.

Statewide, men have been responsible for nearly two-thirds of DWI arrests this year. Motorists age 50 and under were arrested in more than 19,000 of the cases, the dashboard showed.

A map with a dot shows the location of each arrest. By clicking on or hovering over the dot, users can get more information about the incident. The word “null” or 0.00% BAC appears in cases where either evidence is still being tested, the driver admitted to have been drinking but passed a field sobriety test, or the driver may have been impaired by a controlled substance, according to the DPS. The data can be downloaded.

“Saving lives on Minnesota roads requires solid data that can inform traffic safety programs and change dangerous driving choices,” said Mike Hanson, director of the DPS Office of Traffic Safety. “There’s no excuse to drive impaired. The DWI Dashboard gives our partners and now the public a valuable resource to make progress in preventing tragedy.”

Rescheduled road work on Hwy. 55

For drivers expecting westbound Hwy. 55 to be closed this week between Hwy. 169 and Interstate 494 in Plymouth, hang on. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has postponed the closure until 2 a.m. Wednesday. With the delay, westbound lanes will be shut down until Nov. 1. Eastbound drivers can expect delays as signalized intersections along the corridor remain open with limited access, the agency said.