Saturday night, tens of thousands celebrated ringing in the New Year in downtown Reno, but unfortunately not everyone finds a safe ride home.
Officer Dave Hults with the Sparks Police Department says during the holidays, law enforcement is focusing more efforts on finding drunk drivers.
“When I'm driving something will grab my attention, somebody not maintaining their lane, you know they're driving over the center line or they'll be driving over on the lines to the left side, a vehicle without head lights on when they should be, those are all signs that I need to talk to these people," says Hults.
Hults says it's not always a clear indicator, and in fact many drunk drivers will make it home without ever being pulled over by police. While he says it's good that these people make it home safely, it's scary to think what could happen.
“A lot of these people are way past the limit and they're out there and it scares me because my family lives here and I don't want these people on the road when my family is out there," says Hults.
Hults says to keep a safe eye on where the perpetrators may be; he goes to some of the problem areas of sparks where DUI citations are more prone to happen. It's quite often that law enforcement are finding drunk drivers on the long roadways home, going away from the city.
“Vista is a very open road, there's not too many lights to slow people down, there's two lanes so there's a lot of room for them to drive, a lot of folks live out her, so they will drive home from downtown Reno, I mean we've caught them many times, driving home from downtown Reno extremely intoxicated," says Hults.
Sparks police want to remind drivers that it's not just the holidays when they're looking for drivers under the influence. Zero fatalities is the goal for 2017, and there's zero tolerance for drunk driving.
