Reported Thanksgiving-weekend DUI arrests declined from 2021 through 2024. A secondary account reports a further decrease to 214 arrests out of 4,184 stops in 2025; we have not independently verified that year's GOHS release. These are enforcement counts, not a direct measure of how many drivers were impaired or whether roads became safer.
Thanksgiving DUI arrests in Arizona, 2021–2025
Figures are attributed to GOHS through news coverage or secondary reports. The 2025 figure is provisional. This series concerns Thanksgiving-weekend enforcement—not the longer Thanksgiving-to-New Year's campaign.
2025 is based on a secondary account and is provisional. Exact enforcement days, staffing, agency coverage and comparability have not been independently confirmed for all years.
Year-by-year reported figures
| Year | DUI arrests | Traffic stops | Arrests per 100 stops* | Source status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 350 | 8,513 | 4.11 | Reported figures ↗ |
| 2022 | 323 | 8,957 | 3.61 | Reported figures ↗ |
| 2023 | 306 | Not verified | — | Reported figures ↗ |
| 2024 | 263 | 7,053 | 3.73 | Reported figures ↗ |
| 2025 | 214 | 4,184 | 5.11 | Provisional secondary account ↗ |
*A descriptive ratio, not the probability that a traffic stop produces a DUI arrest: counts may include arrests initiated outside traffic stops. Original GOHS campaign tables and comparable staffing counts remain needed.
Notable difference: Between 2024 and the provisional 2025 figures, stops fell 40.7% while DUI arrests fell 18.6%. The reported ratio of arrests to stops rose from 3.73 to 5.11 per 100 stops. This is not evidence that impairment increased.
What do these numbers actually tell us?
Arrests are not convictions or crashes
An arrest is an enforcement outcome. It does not establish guilt and is not a count of DUI crashes, deaths, or everyone who drove impaired.
Enforcement intensity matters
If police stops, officers, shifts or enforcement days differ across years, raw totals may change even without a corresponding change in impaired driving. Comparable denominators would permit a better analysis.
2025 needs primary-source confirmation
A secondary account reports 214 Thanksgiving DUI arrests and 4,184 stops in 2025. We have not obtained the original GOHS table; precise reporting coverage and officer participation are unverified. Thanksgiving 2026 has not occurred yet.
For example, in a separate 2025 December holiday campaign, Arizona Public Media found falling arrests alongside fewer stops and fewer participating officers. That is a reminder to interpret enforcement data carefully—not evidence that the same happened over Thanksgiving. See the AZPM report.
Download and reuse the data
Five-year CSV with reported arrest and stop counts, provisional-data flags, source URLs and limitations. Free to access and use with attribution to the original reporting and to AZDUI.org for the compilation.
Download 2021–2024 SVG chart ↓ (includes source attribution and data limitations).
For media or research inquiries and corrections, see Contact AZDUI.org. We welcome original 2025 GOHS campaign tables and officer counts that establish coverage and comparability.
Sources and methodology
Data origin: Figures attributed to GOHS in news reports and secondary accounts. The 2025 figures are provisional and taken from a secondary legal-site summary. This is a sourced compilation, not an independently obtained GOHS raw export. We will update this page if original period-by-period agency reports supply fuller denominators or corrected totals.
- GOHS Statewide Reporting (primary source portal) ↗
- KTAR: Thanksgiving 2022–2024 arrest comparisons ↗
- 2021–2022 arrest and traffic-stop figures (secondary) ↗
- 2024 traffic stops (secondary) ↗
- 2025 arrest and stop figures (unverified secondary account) ↗
- AZPM: December 2025 enforcement staffing and stops (different period) ↗
Calculation: Year-over-year percentage change equals (current year's reported arrests ÷ previous year's reported arrests − 1) × 100. The arrests-per-100-stops figures are descriptive ratios, not estimates of DUI incidence or a controlled enforcement-adjusted trend. We have not calculated per-capita DUI incidence or statistical significance. Extreme, aggravated and drug DUI classifications may overlap and should not be added to total arrests without reconciling categories.
What is excluded: Thanksgiving–New Year's task-force data, December-only enforcement figures and alcohol-related crash totals measure different periods or outcomes and are excluded from the arrest chart. Thanksgiving 2025 is shown provisionally; Thanksgiving 2026 has not happened yet.
Compiled November 3, 2026. Published for general information by an independently operated website, not an Arizona state agency. Source or arithmetic corrections are welcome through the contact page.