Thousands of Iowans will be celebrating this St. Patrick’s Day with green beer or other forms of alcohol. Police are hoping those people are traveling with someone who’s sober. Sergeant Scott Bright is spokesman for the Iowa Department of Public Safety. “If people are going out to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, they should remember to take a designated driver with them,” Bright says.

Last year, St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Thursday and between the March 17 to 20 period, police across the state arrested 259 people for O-W-I. Bright says a lot of Iowans begin their St. Patrick’s partying early in the day. “They have a long weekend, they start to drink early in the morning, and then we see a lot of people driving who are intoxicated,” Bright says.

According to figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, during a typical St. Patrick’s Day weekend, more than 25-percent of all crash fatalities involve alcohol. That figure rises to 50-percent between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. There have already been 53 fatalities from traffic crashes in Iowa this year.

(Radio Iowa)