Dave Kaleel has been practicing law for more than 40 years and thought he’d seen it all. But this year, the Mendota defense attorney noticed something new: motorists are dropping the dime on DUI suspects.

Kaleel noticed that his past three clients were arrested not because the police saw them weaving across the fog line. Instead, it was other drivers with cell phones who spotted his clients driving erratically and then called the cops.

“For some reason, citizens are more frequently reporting erratic driving by calling 911,” said Kaleel, whose overall traffic caseload is up. “I am not sure of the mechanism to why there’s more reporting, but perhaps people are just being more safety conscious.”

Kaleel isn’t the only one seeing more drunk-driving arrests. La Salle County recently notched its 200^th DUI arrest, a figure that wasn’t reached last year until late July. If the boom continues, the county is headed for a 30% increase in DUIs this year.

Police and local attorneys shared their observations on the current spate of drunk-driving arrests and why the yearly total could see an increase of one-third.

YOUTH MOVEMENT

As previously reported, the SAFE-T Act and the George Floyd killing led to turnover at police departments and an exodus of experienced police officers. In their place arrived recruits with less experience in spotting impaired drivers.

One local police chief thinks arrests may have risen because young cops are getting their sea legs.

“We had a lot of new, younger officers enter the workforce,” observed Mendota Police Chief Jason Martin. “I wonder if the officers are getting more comfortable handling, detecting and arresting DUI offenders.”

Police and attorneys interviewed for this story also agreed that rookie cops are less likely to give an impaired motorist a break.

SPECIALTY PATROLS

La Salle County deputies nabbed two drunk drivers during around St. Patrick’s Day, which wouldn’t have been remarkable except that the arrests happened during a holiday enforcement campaign funded by the state.

Sheriff Adam Diss announced the two arrests at the conclusion of a statewide initiative funded by federal highway safety funds administered by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

“We may only catch one or two,” allowed Lt. John Dyke of the sheriff’s office. Nevertheless, even a handful of arrests can pad a county’s running total by a critical percentage point.

NOT CLOSE TO A RECORD

The county is on pace for 451 drunk-driving arrests, according to a Shaw Local projection, which would represent a seven-year high. Except for 2021, when the county notched 417 arrests, the yearly total has fallen short of 400.

Nevertheless, that figure remains historically low. La Salle County once averaged 700 drunk-driving arrests annually (the record is 824) and the total has trended downward thanks to ever-rising penalties and societal changes, led by young people embracing cannabis over alcohol.

Despite the projected uptick, Peru attorney John Fisher said DUIs still are in overall decline, at least from a historical perspective.

“I used to have a ton of DUIs,” Fisher said. “Now, it’s more driving while suspended or revoked because of prior DUIs.”

Ottawa Police Chief Mike Cheatham said he thinks this year’s upswing is more of a return to normal and that last year’s low total was an aberration.

“I think the odd year was last year, unfortunately,” Cheatham said. “I would like to see them decrease and stay, however, that does not seem to be the case”