EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 As many El Pasoans prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July with barbecues, fireworks and time with family, law enforcement is urging drivers to plan if they will be drinking, warning that the holiday brings an increase in alcohol-related crashes.<\/p>\n
An analysis of 10 years of El Paso crash data published by the El Paso Crime Lab, created by Matthew Duran, a PhD criminology student at Arizona State University and an El Paso native, shows a notable spike in alcohol-related crashes on the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n
“So what I’ve done is I’ve taken a 14-day window for the past 10 years, looking at the number of crashes and just stacked them on top of one another,” Duran said. “And what we tend to see is that on the day of, on the Fourth of July, it shows that we have an average of 2.8 alcohol related crashes. That is, it sounds low, but that’s twice as high as the amount the previous day.”<\/p>\n
In 2026, the holiday falls on a Saturday, a day that already tends to see some of the highest numbers of impaired driving crashes. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo what I would expect to see is probably a lot higher rate of crashes this Saturday,\u201d Duran said.<\/p>\n
Duran said the timing of alcohol-related crashes follows a consistent pattern throughout the year. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn the weekends after 9 p.m., between the hours of 9 p.m. and 3 in the morning is when you see the most alcohol related crashes,\u201d Duran said. \u201cThat’s pretty consistent throughout the year. I haven’t found a holiday that really breaks that pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n
The El Paso Police Department said it is adding extra enforcement throughout the holiday weekend, including DWI enforcement. <\/p>\n
Sgt. Javier Sambrano said there will be a unified operation on July 3, 4 and 5.<\/p>\n
While officers will be looking for impaired drivers across the city, Duran said the data also points to where many of the most serious crashes happen.<\/p>\n
El Paso police, crime lab warn of July Fourth spike in alcohol-related crashes<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the roadways specifically, it’s very over the I-10, the US-54, any sort of roadway with a high speed of travel is overrepresented in the data, and that makes a lot of sense because a big contributing factor to crashes is going to be speed,\u201d Duran said.<\/p>\n
The data also shows where impaired drivers reportedly started their trips. <\/p>\n
The two ZIP codes that appear most often are 79907 on El Paso’s Lower East Side and 79936 on the Far East Side. <\/p>\n
Duran said that to this date in 2026, \u201c17% of the drivers that were intoxicated, so these are drivers that had a blood alcohol content level of .08 or greater,\u201d were associated with ZIP code 79907, and another 17% were associated with ZIP codes 79907 and 79936 as the top two.<\/p>\n
Duran said those ZIP code figures should be taken with caution, noting they may appear more often because they are among El Paso’s most populous areas, not necessarily because people there are more likely to drive impaired. <\/p>\n
Duransaid more research would be needed to draw firm conclusions.<\/p>\n
For police, the message for the weekend is straightforward. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf, uh, you are drinking, there is no reason for you to drive,\u201d Sambrano said. \u201cThere’s a lot of options out there. And, uh, the consequences are just too great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police and researchers urged residents to plan, deciding how they will get home before the night starts if they plan on drinking.<\/p>\n
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